Dude,
I am confused by your statement about telnet. Are you logging into a Unix box or is your question about how to log in or where to log in to?
If you are logged in, you need to know where Perl was installed on the system, or if it even was for that matter. Your sysadmin may be able to help you with this. You can always do a find for perl* but asking someone is probably quicker.
Once you have found the perl interpreter, just follow your book and everthing should be fine. If you don't know vi you may have to edit the files on your PC and FTP them to the Unix system.
Good Luck Dude,
TioTony