For anyone interested in doing this, here is a bulletproof guide to getting Telegard boostrapped under dosbox:
https://www.meresh.com/InternetZero/telegard_dosbox.html

Use the AIO zip file (the easy track, the author calls it, lol); there is zero benefit to patching telegard yourself.

It's so good to be back, all my friends and I ran Telegard in high school during the peak BBS era.