From: Rob.Harper@csc.fi (Rob Harper)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: BioBit #23 MOO
Date: 11 Jan 93 11:52:25 GMT
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                                   No 23
      %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
                          BIO-NAUT NEWSLETTER 8-1-93
                         << EDITED BY ROBERT HARPER >> 
      %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
 
                         FOR SUCH TIMES AS THESE
 
         %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
         %                                                             %
         %  People mutht be amuthed. They can't be alwayth a learning  %
         %  nor yet they can't be alwayth working. They an't made for  %
         %  it.                                                        %
         %                               CHARLES DICKENS: Hard Times   %
         %                                                             %
         %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
 
 
  To play or not to play that is the question.
 
  While in Pisa I listened to a lecture by Peter Deutsch where he waxed
  lyrical about the possibilities of using MUD's (multiple user dungeon)
  for serious teaching. Now chatting on the net, be it on BITNET RELAY or
  on INTERNET IRC, is often scorned as being inconsequential, and not
  worth the investment of time taken to learn the commands, since the
  exchanges that take place are about as stimulating as talking to
  stones.
 
  Never the less if someone from "@parc.xerox.com" does something with a
  MUD then perhaps it is time to sit up straight and pay attention to
  what is going on.
 
  Besides I have always thought that learning through playing is the
  best way to learn... at least when I learn things through play and
  experimentation, they tend to become hard-wired into my nervous
  system. This is in apposition to the stuff-it-down the throat method
  of teaching where I often gag at being force-fed information.
 
  Learning should be a stimulating experience. Gone are the days when
  books were rare, and the Professor who had all the knowledge, passed
  it on to his students via lectures. If a Professor only passes on
  information that can be found in books then his lectures will be
  poorly attended. A good lecturer not only passes on information, but
  does it in a manner that inspires others. My old Professor, Helge
  Gyllenberg used to pack the lecture room not only because of the
  information content of his talks, but because of their entertainment
  value.
 
  Being a Bionaut it is a matter of pride to boldly go where no
  biologist has gone before, and having acquited myself with a defence
  for playfulness I present a introduction to using a MOO-GOPHER.
 
  Fasten your seat belts... and no smoking.
 
  Logging into MOO-GOPHER
 
  Anyone on internet can log into MOO-GOPHER by giving the command
 
  telnet theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu 1709
 
  A MUD is a Multi User Dungeon. Many people can log into a MUD and move
  around the rooms by giving commands (up down east west etc). In the
  MUD there will be other players and you can "talk" to them and perhaps
  ask advice.
 
  When I look at the gopher.log on the Finnish EMBnet gopher I can see
  that there are roughly 1000 transactions per day and I can see that
  people from all round the world are using the site. Wouldn't it be
  fine if there was a "gopher room" that people could congregate in and
  talk shop about biology. Give advice to each other. In the room would
  be a "gopher-guru" who could call up menus from different bio-gophers
  and direct other bionauts in the use of the many online resources that
  are available for biologists... is this only a dream? Read on.
 
 
  MOO-Gopher session.
 
  Here is a log of my first MOO session. I will present it just as it
  happened and put in my own comments to clarify things that might seem
  bewildering. Comments are prefaced with a ####
 
  sun4 /mnt/home/csc/harper 2 telnet theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu 1709
  Trying 134.29.8.244 ...
  Connected to theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu.
  Escape character is ']'.
  Bringing you the latest in Jay's harebrained networking schemes,
 
  #### Access is easy no problems. Opening screen gives some on-line
  #### help.
 
  Welcome to JaysHouseMOO!
 
  Type `connect <character-name <password     to connect to your character
       `connect Guest'                          to connect to a guest character
       `create <character-name <password      to create a character
                                                  if you don't have one;
                                                  human characters only, please
       `@who'                                   just to see who's logged in
                                                  right now, or,
       `@quit'                                  to disconnect, either now
                                                  or later.
 
  After you've logged in type
       `help'                                   for documentation.
 
  #### Have to get into the system by giving command connect Guest
 
  connect guest
 
  Please email bug/crash reports to nop@theory.cs.mankato.msus.edu.
  Okay,... guest is in use.  Logging you in as `Muffin_Guest'
 
  #### Good lord, logged in as Muffin, who would want a nick-name like
  #### that. You then get a description of the "room" that you are in.
 
  Underground
  This is a dark, cramped space.  It appears to be very crowded in here; you
   keep bumping into what feels like drainage pipes, alligators, and other
   people (apparently sleeping).  One useful thing that you've discovered in
   your bumbling about is a manhole cover above you.
  Don't forget to take a look at the newspaper.  Type 'news' to see it.
 
  #### It is good to read what the messages say. It says to type news
  #### so that is what I do.
 
  news
 
  It's the latest issue of the MOO Herald-Examiner, dated Wed Dec 23, 1992.
 
  PROGRAMMER POLICY
 
   On JaysHouseMOO, we are building with the assumption that builders and
   programmers can be trusted almost absolutely; there are a lot of wins that
   come from this.  Unfortunately, this is quite different than the policies on
   LambdaMOO and some other MOOs, and there is a bit of a culture shock for
   people who log in here and expect to be made programmers on sight.  Please
   don't take offense if we don't immediately make you a builder; stick around
   and come up with good ideas, and we probably will.
 
  If you're just interested in looking at code, you can `@chparent me to #58'
  regardless of whether you're a programmer or not.  @list and @d (@d $network:
   seems to be popular) will work for you; other things, like evals and writing
   code, will not, and may bomb with odd errors.
 
  If you're interested in learning to program MOO-code, we recommend LambdaMOO;
   it's a pretty friendly environment for new programmers.
 
  PROJECT BOARD CREATED, NEW POLICY ABOUT PROJECTS
 
   Erik ported waffle's handy project board over here.  Now if you want
   something to do, check out the project board, which will live on the Patio.
   For something to be "officially being done", you HAVE to put it on the
   project board.  If you don't, your work may get RECYCLED WITH GUNS.
 
  (You finish reading.)
  You hear a quiet popping sound; Guest has disconnected.
  Guest has connected.
  Guest pushes the manhole cover aside and climbs out.
 
  #### It looks like if you want to build rooms in MOO then there is the
  #### possibility to do so. Looks like folks are on a first name basis
  #### around here. Time to find out who is online by giving @who command.
 
  @who
 
  Player name           Connected    Idle time    Location
  -----------           ---------    ---------    --------
  Muffin_Guest (#748)   4 minutes    0 seconds    Underground
  Larry (#76)           an hour      3 seconds    Gopher Room
  Guest (#202)          3 minutes    9 seconds    Gopher Room
  Jay (#2)              50 minutes   33 seconds   Gopher Room
 
  Total: 4 players, all of whom have been active recently.
 
  #### What am I supposed to do??? I am in the underground and three
  #### other people are in the Gopher Room. How do I get there?
  #### Lets try help.
 
  help
 
  Help is available on the following general topics:
 
  introduction -- what's going on here and some basic commands
  index -- index into the help system
 
  players -- setting characteristics of yourself
  movement -- moving yourself between rooms
  communication -- communicating with other players
  manipulation -- moving or using other objects
  miscellaneous -- commands that don't fit anywhere else
 
  building -- extending the MOO
  programming -- writing code in the MOO programming language
  editors -- editing text and code in the MOO
 
  @pagelength -- what to do if lines scroll off your screen too fast
  @linelength -- what to do if lines are truncated
  tinymud -- a list of equivalences between MOO and TinyMUD concepts/commands
 
  Type 'help <topic' for information on a particular topic.
 
  #### Well since this is a MUD I am supposed to be able to communicate
  #### with other people who are here so lets get help with
  #### communications
 
  help communication
 
  There are several commands available to allow you to communicate with your
   fellow MOOers.  Help is available on the following communication-related
   topics:
 
  say      -- talking to the other connected players in the room
  whisper  -- talking privately to someone in the same room
  page     -- yelling to someone anywhere in the MOO
  emote    -- non-verbal communication with others in the same room
  gagging  -- screening out noise generated by certain other players
  news     -- reading the wizards' most recent set of general announcements
  @gripe   -- sending complaints to the wizards
  @typo @bug @idea @suggest
           -- sending complaints/ideas to the owner of the current room
  whereis  -- locating other players
  @who     -- finding out who is currently logged in
 
  mail     -- the MOO email system
  security -- the facilities for detecting forged messages and eavesdropping.
 
  #### I remember reading in the original note to give the command
  #### "go up east enter down" to get to the gopher room so lets try that.
 
  go up east enter down
 
  Broken sewer pipe
  The interior of a broken sewer pipe at the side of the road. This is where
  Larry lives. The space is littered with the wrappings from fast-food meals,
  and old useful items plucked from the remnants collected from highway litter.
   Oddly, you spot a gopher hole in the ground.
 
  Gopher Room [gopher.stanford.edu] <jump
  General Gopher Room
  1. About This Gopher (menu)
  2. Networking & Communication Systems (menu)
  3. News (menu)
  4. Other Gopher and Information Servers (menu)
  5. Other Gophers at Stanford (menu)
  6. Other Services (menu)
  7. Univ. of Minnesota (Gopher's Home) (menu)
  8. Weather (menu)
  9. Webster's Dictionary (menu)
  10. Whois (menu)
 
  #### So I am now in the gopher room. The gopher menu looks familiar
  #### Will anyone speak to me... after all who would want to speak to
  #### anyone with a name like Muffin. Remember the BBC Children's
  #### programme "Muffin the Mule" Dear old Muffin playing the fool.
 
  Larry and Jay are here.
  Jay hehs
  Jay waves
 
  #### Some sort of communication here.
 
  Larry says, "Hi Muffin"
  Larry [to Muffin_Guest]: use " to talk, as in: "hello
  You say, "hello"
  Larry claps
  You say, "greetings from Helsinki Finland"
  Larry [to Muffin_Guest]: use : to emote, as in:  :waves
 
  #### So here are a couple of basic command straight away. The use of
  #### " to talk as in "hello and : as in :waves to show some emotion.
 
  You say, "First time in a MOO or  MUD or whatever."
  Larry says, "Home of many fine network services. :-)"
  Larry says, "greetings from Los Altos, California, USA"
  Jay says, "Greetings from Mankato, Minnesota, USA."
  Jay feels the need to complete things.
  Larry says, "confused?"
  You say, "I am a biologist... but that does not mean I am always confused"
  Jay says, "tell em how to run gopher, that's what e's here for."
  Larry laughs
 
  #### To interpertate the dialog above there has been seven uses of the
  #### say command " and a couple of uses of the emote command :
  #### Guess I should establish my credentials. Bamboozle these
  #### Dudes with a few nucleic acid sequences.
 
  You say, "I just posted a messaged about this place to bionet.software"
  Larry grins
  Jay hehs
  You say, "So I expect you will have many biologist dropping in here"
  Jay says, "we're gonna be CRAWLING with guests soon."
  Larry says, "They'll be out in droves, maybe we should make more guests"
  Jay nods
  You say, "Well as you know there are very many Bio-Gophers out there."
  Larry says, "Actually, no, I didn't"
  Larry goes back up a level.
  Jay didn't, but believes it.
 
  #### They are being polite. They can not be serious that they are not
  #### aware that biologists rule gopher-space. What a limited view of the
  #### universe.
 
  Larry resets Gopher Room.
  Larry jumps to nic.funet.fi socket 70
  Larry taps his foot impatiently
 
  #### HMMM... what is going on here... looks like the gopher room is going
  #### into overdrive... traveling at warp factor seventy to NIC. Stay
  #### cool. Establish yourself... tell them about Don Gilbert's gopher
  #### hole... the mother ship of the bio-fleet.
 
  You say, "I should say that biology is leading the field"
  You say, "when it comes to gopher applications in the sciences."
  Jay nods
  You say, "gopher to ftp.bio.indiana.edu and take a look"
  Larry jumps to ftp.bio.indiana.edu socket 70
  Larry picks 10. Other-Bio-Gophers-Etc (menu).
 
  #### How do they do that??? Are there lots of gopher holes in this
  #### room that I just can't see. Act intelligent and ask a good question.
 
  You say, "so can any gopher hole have an associated MOO"
  Larry thinks
 
  #### AAAAHHH got him... he has to think. That was rather intelligent of me.
 
  Larry says, "no, the MOO can have lots of gopher holes"
  You say, "aaahhh...gasp"
  Jay says, "In fact, there are a couple connected to this room."
  Larry says, "This is just a 'room'"
  Larry says, "you can make a private one if you want to look up things in
               private"
  Larry says, "I hadn't really thought of all the applications, I just thought
               people could use online information in conversations"
  Jay says, "Or keep your favorite stuff on your virtual desk."
  Larry goes back up a level.
 
  #### I should not have sounded so surprised... but now I am beginning
  #### to get the picture. If I had a MOO on NIC with a gopher room then
  #### folks could log into the MOO and go to the gopher room where a
  #### guru would be waiting to guide them through gopher-space. Lets
  #### ask for some advice.
 
  You say, "so could you give me some advice"
  Larry says, "Sure, advice is free"
  You say, "can I log this session"
  Larry says, "why not?"
  You say, "anyway tell me about the gopher room"
  Larry isn't sure what to tell
  Larry jumps to nic.funet.fi socket 70
  Ron stares off into the middle distance.
  Ron hehs.
 
  #### There he has done that again. Jumped into the Finnish gopher
  #### on NIC. Ron is bored. He has seen it all before.
 
  Larry picks 2. Finnish Gopher in English (menu).
  Larry picks 1. Finnish University and Research Network (FUNET) (menu).
  Larry picks 3. FUNews -newsletter (menu).
  You say, ""I can see you using NIC but how do you do it"
  Larry says, "well, 'look'"
 
  #### More revelation. To see what the current gopher hole is in MOO
  #### you have to give the command look... of course I knew that all
  #### the time... just wanted to appear super-cool. Where are my sun-glasses.
 
  look
 
  Gopher Room [nic.funet.fi] FUNews -newsletter
  General Gopher Room
  1. Vuoden 1992 sis{lt|
  2.  Hein{kuu 1992 (menu)
 
  Larry says, "everytime someone else moves the gopher pointer, the room
               description changes"
  Larry goes back up a level.
  Larry says, "so now, look again"
 
  look
 
  Gopher Room [nic.funet.fi] Finnish University and Research Network (FUNET)
  General Gopher Room
  1. FUNET contact persons
  2. FUNET in Finnish (menu)
  3. FUNews -newsletter (menu)
 
  #### Now I get the idea you "look" to see the gopher menu and I saw
  #### that Larry went up a level. Time to show these dudes I know a
  #### thing or two about gopher... I will press u to go UP a level
 
  u
 
  Broken sewer pipe
  The interior of a broken sewer pipe at the side of the road. This is where
  Larry lives. The space is littered with the wrappings from fast-food meals,
  and old useful items plucked from the remnants collected from highway litter.
  Oddly, you spot a gopher hole in the ground.
  Larry has arrived.
 
  #### oh-oh Rainman oh-oh
  #### Not such a smart move "u" is a MOO command and it took me out of
  #### the gopher room, and it looks like Larry has followed me. Well if
  #### "u" takes me up then "d" must take me down. I will slip back down
  #### before I embarrass myself further. Where are my sun-glasses?
 
  d
 
  Gopher Room [nic.funet.fi] Finnish Gopher in English
  General Gopher Room
  1. Finnish University and Research Network (FUNET) (menu)
  2. Academy of ]bo (menu)
  3. Centre for Scientific Computing (menu)
  4. Finnish Embnet BioBox (menu)
 
  Larry has arrived.
  Larry says, "you want 'pop', not 'up"
  Larry says, "up moves you out of the gopher room all together :)"
  "You say, "well I was using the command I know in gopher to go up"
  Larry says, "so, try 'pick 4', for example"
  You say, "I guess that "u" is a command reserved for MOO"
  Ron hehs.
  Larry says, "well, I could have overridden it, but I kind of liked using the
                'direction' commands for moving around in VR space"
  You say, "so what do the cursor keys do?"
  Larry says, "Nothing"
  Ron blinks.
  Larry grins
  You say, "well in gopher cursor keys move you around in the menu."
  Larry says, "heck, really, my cursor keys just mess up my screen"
  Jay says, "Well, depending on what your MOO client does with them."
  Ron says, "MOO eats a lot of characters."
  Larry says, "But that would be unfriendly here"
  You say, "and at the moment I am coming in over telnet."
  You say, "where can you get a Moo client?"
  Larry resets Gopher Room.
 
  #### Now I see that Larry has reset the Gopher room. I had better take
  #### a look and see where we are now in Gopher space.
 
  look
 
  Gopher Room [gopher.mankato.msus.edu]  (top)
  General Gopher Room
  1. About Mankato State University
  2. About the Maverick Gopher Server
  3. Campus Information (menu)
  4. Minnesota State University System (menu)
  5. Other Gopher and Information Servers (menu)
  6. University of Minnesota (menu)
  Jay, Ron, and Larry are here.
  Larry jumps to the remembered set of nodes.
  Larry picks 11. parcftp MOO anonymous FTP information (menu).
  Larry picks 13. contrib (menu).
 
  #### This is intersting Larry has guided me to a gopher hole where
  #### there is code for MOO's. This would be a perfect way to give
  #### on-line instructions to new users. I could be in Helsinki
  #### and guide someone from Oulu in the north of Finland on how to
  #### use bio-gophers.
 
  look
 
  Gopher Room [gopher.uiuc.edu 7997] contrib
  General Gopher Room
  1. AmigaMOO.lha
  2. Builtin-Function-Help.el
  3. ChaosMoo.db.Z (binary)
  4. DarkSideOfVR.Z (binary)
  5. GAELIC.TXT
  6. LambdaCoreProgMan.texinfo
  7. LambdaCoreUserMan.texinfo
  8. MOO-1.6.1-Sun4-Stripped-Dynamic.Z (binary)
  9. SchmooHelp-28Aug92.txt
  10. TinyMUD-LambdaMOO-equivs
  11. Tutorial
 
  #### OK well they have been jumping to different gopher hole, but
  #### I would like to be able to do it as well... lets ask them that.
  #### Or do you have to be a wizard to do that. Lets go to Reinhards BioBox.
 
  You say, "OK lets say I want to go to bioftp.unibas.ch"
  You say, "how do I do it?"
  Larry says, "Just use 'goto'"
 
  #### I give the command
 
  goto bioftp.unibas.ch
 
  Muffin_Guest jumps to bioftp.unibas.ch socket 70
  1. About Gopher, and this bioftp site (menu)
  2. Biology subject tree in Gopher (menu)
  3. DIBUG [Discover Insight Biosym User Group] Mailing list (menu)
  4. EMBNet BioInformation Resource Switzerland (menu)
  5. Infoservers in European Countries (menu)
  6. Molecular Biology Archive List
  7. USENET News (menu)
  8. and if you have suggestions or problems...
  9. bioftp server: READ ME FIRST
  10. development site of GOPHER (U Minnesota) (menu)
  11. other Gopher and Information Servers (Minnesota directory) (menu)
 
 
  You say, "I did it ahah"
  Larry claps
  You say, "now if I want to go to item 4"
  Larry says, "say 'pick 4'"
 
  #### Poise that finger over the 4. Show them your stuff Muffin.
 
  pick 4
 
  Muffin_Guest picks 4. EMBNet BioInformation Resource Switzerland (menu).
  1. About EMBnet (menu)
  2. Database (menu)
  3. Hints (menu)
  4. Info on this EMBNet Information Resource
  5. Other EMBnet Hosts and Sources of Information (menu)
  6. Software (menu)
 
  You say, "this is easy"
  You say, "I could do it half asleep"
  Larry is half asleep
 
  #### Yes I forgot about the time differences. Guess those boys should
  #### be in bed. Time for one last question.
 
  You say, "So what about WAIS sources"
  You say, "Can you query them from this gopher room?"
  Larry says, "sure"
  Larry jumps to the remembered set of nodes.
  Larry says, "oh, like item 6 here"
 
  #### I look to see where he has gone to.
 
  look
 
  Gopher Room [remembered set]
  General Gopher Room
  1. The U of I Weather Machine (menu)
  2. Lyrics directory (menu)
  3. List of books available in ascii (recordings for the blind)
  4. NWU info (menu)
  5. Netnews gopher gateway (menu)
  6. recipes WAIS search (search)
  7. Electronic Frontier Foundation archives (menu)
  8. waterloo menu (menu)
 
  Larry says, "if you 'pick 6', it will ask you for a query"
 
  #### Here is another new command "pick" to select an item from a gopher
  #### menu. Now I have to think of something offbeat to do a search on.
  #### Some gruesome food... tripe, heart, liver. Yes!!!! liver that is
  #### horrible enough... Slavic enough... Nordic enough, for Muffin the Mule.
 
  pick 6
 
  Muffin_Guest picks 6. recipes WAIS search (search).
  Search for what? Enter search line or @abort:
  liver
 
  Muffin_Guest searches for liver.
  1. busuioc@ac Re: COLLECTION: Liver recipes
  2. reb@amc.co Re: Re: REQUEST: Liver recipes
 
  pick 1
  Muffin_Guest picks 1. busuioc@ac Re: COLLECTION: Liver recipes.
 
  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% CLIP %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
  Since i've been collecting recipes for about a year, it's about time
  i contributed something.
 
  these recipes are romanian, from a cookbook that's been in my family
  for 25 yrs.  apologies for the not-so-sophisticated translation.  it
  is exact, but it may not sound very american :-)
 
  for the person who requested liver recipes:
  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% MUCH TEXT DELETED %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
 
  You say, "yuck"
  Larry picks 1. busuioc@ac Re: COLLECTION: Liver recipes.
  Jay picks 13. leeba@mcil Re: VEG SALADS.
 
  #### Looks like Larry is a liver fan. Have I made a friend?
  #### Jay goes to the opposite extreme and opts for a salad. Wise man
 
 
  You say, "Hot dog"
  You say, "I will write up a report on your MOO for Biologists"
  Larry grins
  Jay says, "Maybe the biologists should have their own MOO. :-)"
  You say, "In the famous words of Arnold"
  You say, "I'll be back"
  Jay hehs
  Jay waves
  @quit
  *** Disconnected ***
 
  This article is dedicated to Jasper Rees, may he always be surprised
  by what he finds in his corn-flakes package:-)
 
  (Ed: This aphorism should be the subject of much debate in a couple
       of years time, when its origins are no longer clear to the
       new generation of Bionauts)
 
  All the best -=Rob=-
 

 ~ ROB Harper                    ~ E-mail:          harper@convex.csc.fi    
 ~ Finnish State Computer Centre ~ Molbio/software: harper@nic.funet.fi
 ~ P.O. Box 40                   ~ Telephone:       +358 0 457 2076
 ~ SF-02101 Espoo Finland        ~ Fax:             +358 0 457 2302