You can communicate with other computers by using the telnet protocol. The host must be a name or an Internet address. telnet has two modes: the command mode, which is indicated by the telnet > prompt, and an input mode which is usually a session where you would log on to the host system. The default mode is command mode, so if no host is given it will automatically go into this mode. If you need help while in the command mode, type ? or help.