telneting sockets help..

hi i have been trying to write a telnet client to a tn3270 IBM mainframe database ( pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au:23 ) using fsockopen ... i thought it wouldnt be that bad given i have done something similar with usenet .. however i cannot get it to work no matter what I do .. i just get a permanent hang ... has anyone ever attempted this or have any solutions? i know this is rather open ended but i cant offer any code which even kind of works.. it would be much appreciated..