>    > unmaintainable spaghetti ;-): I need a very simple "line
>    > mode" so that 'nc' can be used in place of telnet to do
>    > things like converse with SMTP daemons; with (optional) EOL
>    > conversions too, of course....
>
>I'm not sure what you mean.  I use nc to talk SMTP and HTTP all
>the time.  I type into it just like i would cat.
>

It's examples like this that point to this not needing to be a part of
the baseline system. It's amazing how many years I've gotten away with
telnet <host> 25|80 to do the exact same thing....

James