help for a mud coding noob

So i am looking to make a simple mud server in VB .net. mostly because i have a good background in VB (thought it has been a few years as i don't code professionally) and express edition is free :) For my own personal enjoyment and learning.

Iv got some tutorials on simple socket usage and im currently moving through them. But these are based around a specific client/server structure like a simple chat program. Not specific to telnet.

I want the server to be accessed by telnet. What i cant find is an overview of how telnet sends and receives information, and how to interpret said info. What i have gleaned is that its not simply ascii being sent is it? Any info you have about the basics of telnet functionality would be helpful reading. Or even how to write a vb.net telnet client, as i might be able to reverse the concepts. Hopefully i am making sense. :)

Thanks

Well, actually, it basically is. If you want to send "abc" to the server, you literally just send the characters "abc" on the socket. Now, there are more complicated things going on too in telnet, like negotiation protocols to determine whether or not you support such-and-such feature. But to build a basic MUD server, you don't need to worry about that.

It truly is just as simple as accepting characters from a socket, and then just writing characters back.

You may want to look at this:

http://www.jaruzel.com/MUD32

That is a MUD server which is written in VB, and is free.

As David says, I wouldn't worry too much about telnet right now. When I make "simple" MUD servers I don't worry about telnet. You can use simple sequences to colour text, as most clients recognize those these days.

thanks guys, you actually answered my question about the other junk i was reading about telnet. I was totally confused by the 255 codes or somesuch.