Well Telnet strikes me as being the precursor to such games as video tennis or very similar. The technical ability in those days was, compared to now, primitive, but then when you really think about it the same could be said for graphics and imagery, as well as creativity ten years ago.

I feel that Telnet, was in its time a major breakthrough that without it the internet would not be what it is today. Everything has to start somewhere.

Blinkenlights really was quite clever for its day and I feel that through experimentation and quite probably mistakes have enabled the system to "mutate" into the graphics that we see today which enables creativity a free reign.