Perhaps the localtime port would also be of interest. I'm not sure if it'll work on VAXen, but it's accessible via tcp port 13.
Here's what worked for me:

#SHELL# telnet localhost 13
Trying...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
Fri Nov 30 16:14:00 GMT 2001
Connection closed by foreign host.
#SHELL#
[download]

May be useful.
davis