From: Carl.Calvello@psycho.fidonet.org (Carl Calvello)
Newsgroups: alt.bbs.internet
Subject: Unix Commands
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 18:15:00 EDT
Organization: Psycho: The Usenet<->Fidonet Gateway of St. Pete Florida

PA>Does any one know how to chat on internet? What I mean is if
PA>one person knows a friend who is online at that moment, is there
PA>a way to send a message to that person and have him receive it
PA>right away? Is there a way for one to find out if a friend is
PA>really online or not? Is there a way of doing this sort of direct
PA>communication via internet?

        YES there is!!  You can do almost anything with Internet, it's 
sooo cool!
        I have a file called ZEN-10.zip (Zen and The Art of Internet)  It 
explains how to do most anything.  I can't upload the whole thing because 
I'm on a FIDO gateway and I don't think it will fit, so heres the answers 
to your questions:
**************************************************************************
1.) To find out if a friend is online at the current time:

On many systems there exists the `finger' command, which yield infor- 
mation about each user that's currently logged in. This command also has 
extensions for use over the Internet, as well.  Under normal 
circumstances, 
the command is simply `finger' for a summary of who's logged into the lo- 
cal system, or `finger username' for specific information about a user. 
It's 
also possible to go one step further and go onto the network.  The general 
usage is 
 
     finger @hostname 
 
To see who's currently logged in at Widener University, for instance, use 
 
 
     % finger @cs.widener.edu 
     [cs.widener.edu] 
     Login        Name               TTY Idle    When             Where 
     brendan  Brendan Kehoe          p0       Fri 02:14  tattoo.cs.widene 
     sven     Sven Heinicke          p1       Fri 04:16  xyplex3.cs.widen 
 
To find out about a certain user, they can be fingered specifically (and 
need not be logged in): 
 
     % finger bart@cs.widener.edu 
     [cs.widener.edu] 
     Login name: bart                         In real life: Bart Simpson 
     Directory: /home/springfield/bart        Shell: /bin/underachiever 
     Affiliation: Brother of Lisa             Home System: 
channel29.fox.org 
     Last login Thu May 23 12:14 (EDT) on ttyp6 from channel29.fox.org. 
     No unread mail 
     Project: To become a "fluff" cartoon character. 
     Plan: 
     Don't have a cow, man. 
 
Please realize that some sites are very security conscious, and need to 
restrict the information about their systems and users available.

2.) To talk to that person:

    Sometimes email is clumsy and difficult to manage when one really 
needs to have an interactive conversation. The Internet provides for that 
as well, in the form of talk. Two users can literally see each other type 
across thousands of miles. 
 
    To talk with Bart Simpson at Widener, one would type 
 
     talk bart@cs.widener.edu 
 
which would cause a message similar to the following to be displayed on 
Bart's terminal: 
 
     Message from Talk_Daemon@cs.widener.edu at 21:45 ... 
     talk: connection requested by joe@ee.someplace.edu 
     talk: respond with:  talk joe@ee.someplace.edu 
 
Bart would, presumably, respond by typing `talk joe@ee.someplace.edu'. 
They could then chat about whatever they wished, with instantaneous re- 
sponse time, rather than the write-and-wait style of email.  To leave 
talk, on many systems one would type Ctrl-C (hold down the Control key and 
press `C'). Check local documentation to be sure. 
 
    There are two different versions of talk in common use today. The 
first, dubbed "old talk," is supported by a set of Unix systems (most 
notably, those currently sold by Sun). The second, ntalk (aka "new talk"), 
is more of the standard. If, when attempting to talk with another user, it 
responds with an error about protocol families, odds are the 
incompatibilities between versions of talk is the culprit.  It's up to the 
system administrators of sites which use the old talk to install ntalk for 
their users. 
 
THIS SHOULD HELP, SO ENJOY!!

Carl Calvello@psycho.fidonet.org

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