Programming a "Telnet" client

[Slartibartfast]

Ok, here's the deal: I want to make a TELNET-ish client, specially for use in MUDs or MOOs (multi-user text adventure games), mostly for a game I have in mind. Even if I never finish it, I think it would be an interesting exercise.

The idea is that, besides your command input and the text output, you have windows to help with certain things, a la Magnetic Scrolls (see here) using stuff like point & click in addition to the parser.

So who here has previous experience in programming, and likes MUDs (or similars)? Or just would like to help or give me ideas, etc. I'm thinking about making this in JAVA, and use one of those server programs "off-the-shelf" without modifying any code except the in-game scripts themselves. (I was thinking about using a sort of escape code, like they do with ANSI)