How to check multiple hosts for simple connectivity?

I need a tool that tells me if a connection to a host is open or not -- no data to send or receive, just see if the connection is successful. Today I use telnet. $ telnet myhost myport Trying 192.168.1.99... Connected to myhost. Escape character is '^]'. ^[^] telnet> quit Connection closed. ... but I need to have manual input there: the ^] and then also the quit. I need to check several hosts, and that's too much for my simple method. How can I do check for connectivity to multiple hosts more effectively? I would prefer to use a pre-existing tool.