@Michael_b That seems to be a feature of many modern OS's and might apply to old ones too, but when connecting my Macintosh to a BBS, I currently have to:
1.) Connect a serial cable to my modern PC and the Mac
2.) Run TCPser on the modern computer to a select port # and speed. This makes it emulate a Hayes Modem (Bridging the PC's Wifi and the Macintosh)
3.) Open up a terminal emulator like Kermit to the mentioned speed and Serial port.
4.) Open up the terminal's command window and use the dial command (followed by the BBS and port number)
5.) You are connected to a BBS..............Hopefully
I haven't tried many other ways to accomplish a connection, but if the OpenWRT device can replicate this process (acting as the modern PC as mentioned above) using Ethernet cables instead of Serial cables, that would be quite cool. If there is an easier way to do this, then please let me know.
That's why I was talking about TCPser earlier. TCPser only runs on Windows with a Linux-emulating DLL, but it can run natively on OpenWRT as
a package/program (OpenWRT is really a Linux System). Having the ability to toggle the TCPser program and settings at ease with OpenWRT could make telnet much more portable and compact.
Also, when you were talking about direct telnet access from a computer with internet, I think that is only the case with newer commands like
SSH, not
dial (you could technically add support for this in the extension, but some BBS's may not support SSH connections (I could be wrong here too)). Telnet with classic dialing will need a real modem or a router which emulates the modem.