We give a new characterization, in the equicharacteristic case, of Teter rings by using Macaulay inverse systems. We extend the previous characterizations due to Teter, to Huneke and Vraciu and to Ananthnarayan et al., to any characteristic of the ground field and remove the hypothesis on the socle ideal. We construct and describe the variety parametrizing Teter covers and we show how to check if an Artin ring is Teter. If this is the case, we show how to compute a Teter cover.