Alt.Talkers FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) v1.11
fa...@miggy.org
==================================================
Last Updated: 5th October 2004
Introduction
============
This FAQ aims to explain a few things about the alt.talkers
newsgroup, and any newsgroups formed under it. The primary reason for
writing the FAQ is that there seem to be a lot of misguided individuals
who think alt.talkers is for a purpose other than that for which it was
intended.
There is also some material about the talkers this newsgroup *is*
about. It is expected that this information will quickly become
dominant in this FAQ.
Contents
========
NB: a '*' means the section is new to the FAQ in this update.
a '!' means the section was updated in this version of the FAQ.
[The updates in this version are mostly correcting typos, plus removing]
[stale URLs. Some additional client URLs would be appreciated. ]
1.0 The Newsgroup Alt.Talkers
1.1 What Is The Newsgroup Alt.Talkers Meant For?
1.2 What Is Alt.Talkers *NOT* Meant For?
2.0 Information About Talkers
2.1 Ok, I'm Not Supposed To Chat Here, How DO I Use One Of These
Talkers?
2.2 Right, I've Located A Telnet Program I Can Use. Where Do I Telnet
To?
2.3 Eeek! I've Connected To A Talker. What Now?
3.0 Basic Information For Types of Talker
3.1 EW-Too
3.2 OOT/JOOT
! 3.3 NUTS
3.4 iFORMS
3.5 Ncohafmuta
3.6 Amnuts
3.7 CheesePlant's House
4.0 Other Resources
4.1 A Few Talker Addresses
4.2 WWW Talker Lists
4.3 Some Links For Getting MUD/Talker Client Programs
4.4 Talker hosting services
***************************************************************************
1.0 The Newsgroup Alt.Talkers
1.1 What Is The Newsgroup Alt.Talkers Meant For?
============================================
Alt.talkers was created to give peole who USE talkers a place to
exchange information. This might be announcements of new talkers,
the reason(s) for any downtime of a particular talker, or any of a
whole range of other valid reasons. There _is_ a seperate group
'alt.talkers.programming' for discussion of the programming of Talkers. If
you do not have access to this group on your news server complain to
your news administrator.
If there is demand for a more complex hierarchy of groups I'm sure we
can sort that out. For the time being alt.talkers is a fairly quiet
group, so there is no need to fragment discussion into seperate groups.
1.2 What Is Alt.Talkers *NOT* Meant For?
====================================
Alt.talkers is *not* meant to be a place for people to just talk.
That is what the actual talkers are for after all. If you feel the
need to talk on usenet check out the talk.* hierarchy of newsgroups.
If you just want to chat then check out some of the talkers that this
newsgroup is supposed to be about.
Alt.talkers is ALSO not meant for *ANY* advertising of any form other
than that _directly_ related to talkers, i.e. a new talker, talker
moving site, new talker basecode, new talker client, talker site
hosting, etc.
NB: It is a given that the rules for Alt.talkers ALSO apply to all
other groups within the hierarchy, until such time as it is explicitly
stated otherwise.
***************************************************************************
2.0 Information About Talkers
2.1 Ok, I'm Not Supposed To Chat Here, How DO I Use One Of These Talkers?
=====================================================================
Basically you need a 'telnet' program. Any users of 'unix' like
machines can just do something like:
telnet somemachine.somewhere 1234
Although you'd be better off trying to use a better client program than
telnet for this.
I have been informed that under Windows 95 you should be able to:
Go to 'Start'.
Go to 'Run'.
Type in the talker address (as above for unix telnet).
If you use windows or a mac, or other 'graphical' system then you
should hopefully have an icon labelled 'telnet' or similar in with the
other icons for internet applications (mail, news, and the like). The
one thing to be careful of with these is that not all of them will
allow you to specify a port number other than the default '23'. Most
talkers run on a port above 1023, due to the design of unix-like
operating systems that most talkers run on.
2.2 Right, I've Located A Telnet Program I Can Use. Where Do I Telnet To?
=====================================================================
The style of talkers this newsgroup was first set up to discuss is
those based on the 'EW-Too' code by Simon Marsh (aka Burble on
Foothills). There are a few derivatives of this code now, such as
summink, SensiSummink and Playground 96, and now PlayGround Plus.
There are are also other types of talker, notably 'NUTS' based, as
well as a few 'custom' built ones that are unique. The remainder of
this FAQ will concentrate on the EW-Too type talkers, because that is
what the author is used to (anyone used to the others feel free to
contribute a section to this FAQ).
All of these talkers will have an address consisting of TWO parts.
The first is the name of the machine it runs on, the second is the port
number it runs on, to distinguish it from other services on that same
machine.
An example is:
surfers.org 4242
^ ^
| |----------- Port number
|
\---------- Machine
With a unix telnet you would simply:
telnet surfers.org 4242
With some graphical telnet clients, under MS-Windows and the like, you
may be able to just type the full address into a dialogue box. With
others you may have to change the 'Default Port', or similar setting,
to ensure you get the correct address.
2.3 Eeek! I've Connected To A Talker. What Now?
============================================
This all depends on what sort of talker you're now connected to.
Most will ask you for a name that you would like to be known by on the
talker. Feel free to use your real name if you want to, but most
people will use another name. This can be that of a character in a
book or movie you like, something from mythology, the name of a pop
group, or anything else you come up with.
You may not be able to use the name you choose, either because
someone else is already using that name, or because it is too long, or
contains characters the talker does not allow in names.
Once past this, and maybe a few other steps, which SHOULD be clearly
explained by the talker itself, you will find yourself 'logged in' to
the talker. Now you can start chatting to whoever else is also
connected to this same talker. How you do this varies depending on
what type of talker you're connected to, but can be broken down into
two basic forms.
First off with some talkers ANYTHING you type is sent back out to the
other people in the same 'room' as you on the talker, so just type
away. With other talkers (EW-Too included) you will have to use the
'say' command.
If all else fails try typing 'help', or on the style of talkers where
that would make you say "help", try '.help'.
***************************************************************************
3.0 Basic Information For Types of Talker
3.1 EW-Too
======
EW-Too talkers are what I would class as 'command' talkers. This
means you can't just type away to chat, you need to use a command such
as say to get anything out to other people.
3.1.1 Connecting
==========
Just telnet to the appropriate address. You will get a screen or so
of text that is the 'banner' for the talker you're connected to.
This will announce the name of the talker, credit any authors, and
then ask you to enter your name.
Go ahead and type in your chosen name. If you are asked for a
password, and this is your FIRST time on this talker using this name
then you have chosen a name that someone else is already using.
DISCONNECT from the talker and try again with another name.
Once you find a 'free' name you'll be greeted with a few pages of
text, explaining things like the rules of the talker, who the admin
are, something asking for your terminal type, etc. EACH of these
pages should prompt you at the bottom either to just hit 'Return', or
to enter some informtaion (such as terminal type). Read each
carefully and follow the instructions.
This may all seem bothersome, but it has proven necessary, and most
of it is only necessary the very first time you connect to each
talker.
Eventually you'll actually be logged in to the talker. You'll see a
description of the room you're in, either the main one or one
especially set aside for 'Newbies'. Below this is a list of other
people in the room with you.
3.1.2 What Now?
=========
The basic command on EW-Too talkers is 'say':
say hello!
To send a message to just one person use the 'tell' command:
tell somebloke hi there
If in doubt try the 'help' command. This will give you a list of
topics you can call up help on, such as 'communications':
help communications
All commands on a talker should have a help page associated with
them, so if you find yourself wondering what a particular command
does just try 'help <command name>'.
To find out the names of the commands you can use the 'commands'
command. Note that this may simply give you instructions on how to
get commandlists of certain types of commands.
This information may in time be expanded, but right now the author
is tired and thinks this is enough for a first draft.
3.2 OOT/JOOT
========
NB: This section supplied by:
Dave_...@Software.Mitel.COM (Dave Jarvis)
3.2.1 OOT
===
The Object-Oriented Talker. Written in C++, this talker code allows you
to manipulate over 200 strings, and customise almost every aspect of it
without recompiling, nor even rebooting. A few other features:
* Command names changed, on the fly
* Set up your own Talker macros, on the fly
* Users may change their abbreviations (short-cuts to commands)
* A simple ANSI colour scheme, with a random colour ability
* Multi-tells and Room tells
* Powerful reading and deleting syntax for mail and messsage boards
* Suggestion board
* Room names don't require underscores in their name
Available at:
http://www.joot.com/software/archives/
3.2.2 JOOT
====
The Java-based Object-Oriented Talker. Written in Java, this talker code
allows you to manipulate over 350 strings, and customise more aspects of
it than OOT from right online! It supports more than just these features:
* Talker Linking (to other JOOT talkers)
* 14-colour ANSI colour scheme, with 2 random colours (bright, dark)
* Add/remove/rename/join/detach rooms from online
* Find real Unix ID of people currently online
* See both DNS and IP address of sites
* Multi-threaded
* Purge users of a given user level who haven't been on for X number of days
* Look up users of similar site names
* Add new commands without shutting down
* Runs (without re-compiling) on:
Linux, FreeBSD, BSDI, HP-UX, AIX, Windws 95/NT, MacOS, OS/2 (Warp),
SunOS, Solaris, and numerous other operating systems
Available at:
http://www.joot.com/software/archives/
Soon a Web-based ANSI Terminal Emulator will be released (including source).
A preview can be found at:
http://www.joot.com/software/archives/
3.3 NUTS
====
3.3.1 Where to find information on NUTS
=================================
The NUTS home page is located at:
http://www.ogham.demon.co.uk/nuts.html
This includes a full FAQ about NUTS, and is written by the author of
NUTS.
NUTS IV is now available:
http://www.ogham.demon.co.uk/nuts4.html
3.4 iFORMS
======
3.4.1 What is iFORMS?
===============
The NUTS code spawned a bastard child called iFORMS (internet FORum
Multiplexing System..or internet FORuMS as the creator calls it now)
This was written by "Deep" (Victor Rohr).
3.5 Ncohafmuta
==========
NB: This section supplied by:
co...@asteroid-b612.org (Anthony J. Biacco)
3.5.1 What is Ncohafmuta?
===================
Ncohafmuta is an advanced talker system written in C. It has been
around since mid '94 and is based off the no longer developed iFORMS code
(by Deep). It is stable and runable on a variety of Unix platforms.
Its distiguishable features are:
* Multi-tells, semotes, thinks..friend tells and semotes
* Ability to grant and revoke arbitrary commands from a specific user, all
users, or users from a rank on up
* Macro substitutions and custom macro naming.
* User expiring. Have users older than a set # of days nuked.
* Creation of new users based on email verification system
* Mail forwarding
* Web server port which outputs searchable user lists, users online, and
user profile/picture info in real time.
* Timed shutdowns, reboots, and soft-rebooting
* Login activity monitoring via ASCII graph
* Enhanced editing commands
* Auto-promoting and Auto-nuking
* User gags, ANSI coloring, Mail limiting, and more..
* DNS caching and external DNS resolving
The Ncohafmuta homepage is located at:
http://www.asteroid-b612.org/ncohafmuta
3.6 Amnuts
======
NB: This section supplied by:
amn...@talker.com (Andrew Collington)
3.6.1 What is Amnuts?
===============
The current incarnation of Amnuts is based on NUTS 3.3.3, though it has
undergone a huge amount of changes, including adding over double the amount
of commands, altering the way some commands work, adding a lot of new
features, and more, yet still being able to retain that friendly NUTS feel.
Some modifications that have been made to Amnuts are:
* Sends smail to email address
* Port flood protection
* Personal user rooms
* Auto promotion
* Purging of user files (with 3 different options)
* Enhanced paging of files
* The ability to give or take commands from users or whole levels
* The ability to search for user names
* Wild card use (* and ?) for a large amount of commands
* Statistical output of memory use, system details, users, command usage
* ...and more :)
3.6.2 The website
===========
The Amnuts homepage is located at:
It has information about the Amnuts code, setting up your Amnuts talker, a
FAQ to give some extra help. There is also a mailing list you can join,
a number of message boards that cover Amnuts, programming, code snippets,
and so on. There is also a list of Amnuts based talkers that you can add
yours to, view the talkers listed, sort them, vote for them, and even print
a graphic free version of the list (handy also for copy and pasting!)
3.7 CheesePlant's House
This was the 'original' talker that inspired the whole EW-Too genre.
CheesePlant has now made the source available. Go to this URL for
more information, and quite a bit of early talker history:
http://www.cheeseplant.org/~daniel/pages/cph.html
***************************************************************************
4.0 Other Resources
4.1 A Few Talker Addresses
======================
A few recommended talkers:
Name Machine Port
Foothills foothills.tk 2010
Resort resort.org 2323
Surfers surfers.org 4242
Some allegedly popular NUTS-based or Ncohafmuta talkers:
Enchantment Under the Sea euts.org 2000
Scarlet Citadel scarlet.eu.org 2000
Glantri's Labyrinth II talker.com 2200
4.2 WWW Talker Lists
================
You can find the addresses for a lot more talkers at the following
URLs. Note that these have not been checked recently, but the first
at least should still be correct. It is also probably the best:
http://list.ewtoo.org/
http://realms.palni.edu/
http://www.talkers.ws/
4.3 Some Links For Getting MUD/Talker Client Programs
=================================================
Once you've been using a Talker, or a MUD, for a while, you'll
quickly tire of the standard telnet clients. If you want something
better, check out the following URLs:
http://download.ewtoo.org/ (also ftp://ftp.ewtoo.org/pub/)
ftp://ftp.game.org/pub/mud/clients
ftp://ftp.tcp.com/pub/mud/Clients
For further information you may like to check out the
rec.games.mud.misc FAQ.
4.4 Talker hosting services
=======================
Now you know some base codes, found the resources and read all the
information, you may want to set up your own talker. There are a number
of hosts that allow you to do this, and these are some of them:
http://www.ewtoo.org/ (only for ewtoo based codes though)
http://www.talker.com/
http://www.talker.org/
http://www.dune.net/
http://www.binhost.com/
http://toybox.infomagic.net/
***************************************************************************
Contacting The Author of This FAQ
=================================
The author of this FAQ is no other than 'Athanasius', the person who
put out the 'summink' code, which is derived from the EW-Too code. If
you need to contact him, use the address that follows. However, DO
NOT ASK HIM GENERAL QUESTIONS ABOUT TALKERS, HE DOES NOT HAVE THE TIME
TO ANSWER THEM. By all means make suggestions for improvements to
this FAQ, certainly it could do with some more pointers to WWW pages
about these talkers, not to mention some information on talkers other
than EW-Too types.
That address: