Talk&Talkd are a Macintosh implementation of the Un*x Talk protocol. They are compatible with BSD 4.3 Talk (ntalk), as well as with some versions of 4.2 Talk (otalk), in particular, they are compatible with the Sun's current implementation of BSD 4.2 Talk (although the connection time is somewhat slower (around 10 seconds)). You can FTP BSD 4.3 Talk from various places and install it on your unix machine. If you find a machine which has talk installed but you can't talk to with my program (and you can get me a temporary account on the machine) I'll try to make it work (no guarantees though). As far as I can tell, it should connect to any talk except BSD 4.2 talk on machines with reversed byte order, I don't have an account on such a machine, so I can't do anything about it until I get one.
Talkd is a background only application that notifies you when a talk connection is requested from anywhere in the world. You will be notified when someone trys to talk to you (if Talk is running you will be notified acording to its preferences, otherwise you will receive and alert telling you to run Talk). Talk is an application that allows you to talk to anyone in the net-world. Note that unlike Finger&Fingerd, Talkd must be running to use Talk.
• Using Talk/Talkd
You must have MacTCP installed in order to use either of these applications.
Put Talkd or an alias to it in the startup folder (System 7) or make it a startup application (system 6), and launch it. Once Talkd is running, if someone tries to talk to your mac, you will be notified by Talkd to run Talk (unless its already running, in which case Talk will notify you as defined in its preferences). You can only quit Talkd if you're running System 7. You can do this by launching Talk, holding down the option key and quitting Talk. The Quit menu item should change to Quit Both. This will quit both Talk and Talkd. You can also quit Talkd by using ProcessWatcher by H. Marty, or any similar process managment program. In either case the Finder in System 7 will leave Talkd's icon greyed as if it was still in use. This appears to be a bug in System 7's Finder, although I've seen at least one person from Apple say this is a feature.
To Talk to someone else, launch the Talk application (after you have launched Talkd), set up the options via the Preferences command, and then choose Talk from the File menu. Fill in the username and machine name of the person you wish to talk to (Note: If you have used unix, you may prefer to type user@machine into either field). Click either the Set Default or Talk buttons to talk to them (Set Default also saves this as the default startup value for the Talk window). The user on the other end will be alerted to your request (note that this alert will take some time to reach them (up to about 10 seconds for slow networks or if the machine is running the old version of talk (in particular Suns). If you open the status window, your request will show as "user@machine". You can "Abort" the request, or wait for it to connect. After it has sent the message, you can Ring the person Again by clicking the Ring Again button. When the user on the other end responds, a Talk window will open up with two panes. You type into the top pane (or the bottom one, depending on the preferences setting), and the other persons comments appear in the other pane.
To respond to an incoming talk request, launch the Talk application when you alerted to do so. The Status window will open and a line giving the user name of the requesting person will appear. Click the Connect button to connect. Within about 10 seconds (more if the network between the machines is slow), a talk window will open and you can talk to the other user.
Talk will add any successful addresses to the Talk hierarchical menu. You can save this menu by choosing Save Talk Menu from the File menu.
Because there are many different incarnations of the old version of talk, you may have problems talking to certain machines. Without an account on the machine, I am unlikely to be able to usefully answer the question: "Why can't I talk to x.y.z machine?". Lending others the use of your account is viewed very poorly by most sysops, so don't offer unless you have the authority to do so.
Note: Most unix talk implementations require that your mac has a valid internet name (including reverse mapping). If your mac does not have a valid DNS name it is unlikely that you will be able to talk to most unix machines (its not difficult to patch BSD talk on a particular unix machine to remove this restriction, but this will not help in the general case)
• Talk Ethics
Talk and Email are two different ways to communicate a message to someone on the Internet. They are quite different, and you should understand the differences when using Talk. If you Talk at someone, they must respond immediately, they must drop everything they are doing to talk to you and they are basically forced to give their undivided attention to you while the talk session continues. This is made even more difficult if they are already involved in a Talk session with someone else.
When should you use Email in preference to Talk?
- When you want to ask a question, or pass on some information.
- When you don't know the other person well. You should almost never talk to someone you don't know. Better is to mail them and ask them to talk to you when they have a moment.
When should you use Talk in preference to Email?
- When you know the person well, and have something urgent to ask.
- When you know the person well, and wish to chat with them.
- When you know the person well, and need to brain storm a problem or idea.
- In an emergency that requires immediate attention.
When could you use either?
- If you know the person well, and want to chat or brain storm, you can often do this via Email, which is much less intrusive on both parties, and which allows the respondent to answer at their own leasure, and to think their answer through.
Of course, the above is just my view of the use of Talk and Email. Others will obviously have different views on what is acceptable. Basically you should never use Talk to deliberately annoy someone! And don't take it personally if they don't answer your talk request. Many unix programs kill the talk daemon message to avoid messing up the screen, and the Mac notification disappears after one minute, so the person may not even have got your request. And always initiate any communication with an unknown person via Email first and sound them out on the use of Talk. This applies to talking to me as well. Send me some Email (I love Email) but Talk is reserved for people with whom I communicate frequently.
• The Status Window
The status window shows a list of past and current talk connections since Talk was started up. The first symbol is either a Mac (for talk connections you instigated), or a Globe (for incoming talk requests). Next comes the current status symbol. There are five possible symbols in this spot: Trying, Connecting, Talking, Talked, and Failed (I won't bother trying to describe the icons here :-). The next column is the time the connection started, and the last is the user who you are talking with.
There are three buttons at the top of the Status Window. Their meanings change as the connection changes, but their basic purpose stays the same: The left one aborts the current state, the middle one continues with the connection, and the right one brings the talk window to the front.
• How It Works
Talkd listens to UDP port 517 and 518. It receives incoming packets and keeps a table of talk requests (both local and remote). When a request comes in it first checks to see if Talk is running (under System 7 only, sorry), and if not it puts an Alert up to tell you to run Talk. Talk keeps an eye on the table, and when a new request comes in, it will notify you and display the status window. Double click on the request to connect to it. If you talk to someone else, it will also show up in the status window, and you can cancel the request by double clicking it. Talk connects by opening a TCP connection with the other party (based on the host IP and port number in the Talkd table). It then sends the three mystery edit chars across the TCP connection (being $7F (delete) and two others $15 & $13 which I don't understand :-). After that the chars you type are sent across with minor translations (You can change the default translations by editing the "Translate 7<->8" file, and placing it in the preferences folder (this will change the behaviour of both Talk and Finger)).
• Limitations
Talk&Talkd probably require the 128k ROM and System version 6.0 or higher. It may well only work with a Mac IIsi (not mine)-:, and System 7.0. It definitely requires MacTCP, and may well require v1.1 of MacTCP.
• Small Print
This program is Shareware, which means if you use it, and you'd like me to write more useful things, then you should send me $5 (US or Australian). For individual registrations, you might as well just send cash, but I can accept checks drawn on US bank accounts without any real problem.
Site Licensing:
World-wide license: US$1000 (or equivalent)
Foreign universities or companies site license: US$250 (or equivalent)
Australian universities or companies site license: AU$250 (none yet)
Individuals: AU or US $5 (or equivalent).
There is no fee to upgrade to this version, if you registered a previous version, that registration remains valid.
I’ve read through the Guide for Shareware Authors. According to them, I am doing everything wrong. I should put a large price tag on my software because the people who pay will pay whether or not I put a large price tag, and the people who won’t pay, won’t pay no matter what the price is. This seems to be to be totally negative reinforcement - I’d hurt those who do the right thing by me, and have no effect on the rest. I’m not going to do that, at least not yet. So I’m not going to be able to work on these programs full time, which is a shame.
Note that I'd prefer that you use the program and send me a note saying so, than not use the program at all! (it doesn’t help either of us if you delete it and don’t pay) So even if you are not willing to send me any money, still drop me a line and say hi and tell me what you like or don't like about this program.
You may distribute Talk&Talkd any way you wish as long as you don't charge for it (reasonable download costs such as Compu$erve are ok I guess (although who would call Compu$erve’s download costs reasonable?)). It would probably be a good idea to keep this documentation file with the program, but I’m hardly likely to check up on you now am I! I don’t guarantee any support, but I always answer my Email. If I don’t answer Email its because your message didn’t get to me, or my reply bounced (so try again, and include a valid internet address if you can).
• Warranty
There is absolutely NO warranty, guarantee, hint, suggestion or anything else that would lead anyone to think that Talk or Talkd do anything stated in this documentation. It usually does not destroy data (systems, hardware, etc), and has sometimes worked on my Mac with System 7.0. It is highly unlikely that it will work with older systems (pre 6.0 anyway) or with the 64k ROM. It might work with the other models, but I don't have them all, so I don't know (Anyone want to give me a IIfx (or one of those new beasts? How did they come up with such a terrible name???) so I can check for compatibility?). It might work with previous (or future!) versions of MacTCP (other than 1.1), but who can tell? If it works on your system (or especially if it doesn't!), send me a postcard or some Email and let me know!
• Fine Print
Peter Lewis hereby disclaims all warranties relating to this software, whether express or implied, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Does any one really read this stuff. Peter Lewis will not be liable for any special, incidental, consequential, indirect or similar damages due to loss of data or any other reason, even if Peter Lewis or an agent of his has been advised of the possibility of such damages. In no event shall Peter Lewis be liable for any damages, regardless of the form of the claim. The person using the software bears all risk as to the quality and performance of the software.
• Version History
Still to do -
Totally rewrite it from the ground up
Option to automatically bring talk to the front on incoming talk requests.
Facility to query the AppleTalk network to find Talkd machines on it.
TCP Server that returns the Machines on the AppleTalk network, and a unix and Mac client to go with it (to find Dynamic IPs)
Talk and finger can't both be open? - couldn't reporduce this.
Talk crashes when "Never" is selected and someone calls? - couldn't reporduce this.
Windows menu.
Save talk output window. Either or both panes? Interleaved? Neat trick!
Print talk window
Better notification, including when the person on the other end starts/stops talking.
Recordable beep sound instead of just sysbeep, for both notification and start/stop beeps
Pane slider for the Talk panes?
Menu equivs for the status buttons
A method of disallowing message refusals or otherwise locking the prefs?
Use nmResponseProc to put an alert up with a Launch Talk button? Possible? Unlikely.
Add a drawing window for sending doodles across :-) just kidding (See HomerDraw)
Some or all of Stuart Cheshire's suggestions:
using Fingerd's tokens in the auto reply.
recording the auto reply message answers. (like an answering machine).
Perhaps you allow a folder of alternative answering machine messages which
are selected by caller's name, and a default one for unknown callers. That
way I could have a slightly more polite message for when my advisor calls
me. Of course you should also allow call screening, so that when I pick
autoreply from the menu, I can watch the user typing, and start typing
myself if I decide I want to answer ("Hi, I just walked through the door /
came out of the bathroom / got out of the shower / came back from the
kitchen etc.")
Also, if you could add a %IF %ELSE %ENDIF construct to your current finger
message architecture it would be great. (%IF (%TIME > 11.00pm) What time
do you think this is to be calling someone? %ENDIF)
v1.1.1
~Fixed incompatibility with AppleScript
~Talk launch Talkd
~Talkd launch and wait for MacTCP to start up later (for MacSLIP)
v1.1.0
~Option to automatically connect to incoming talk requests.
~Dimmed the Talk button when an invalid address was selected.
~Changed RecieveKey to use TEInsert instead of TEKey to avoid TE calling ShieldCursor
~Added Zoom state preserving.
~Preserve text selection across RecieveKey - still flickers though :(
v1.0.5&6
~Bug fixes.
v1.0.4
~Arrow keys and return in Status window
~Save status window position.
~Grey default outlines when window is deactivated
v1.0.3
~Add Status buttons
~Handle ring agains
~Added ethics section in Docs file
~Update the grow icon properly when brought to the front
~Change the cursor to an insertion point when over the Talk window
~Fixed a bug that caused a crash if Talk was brought to the front with no windows open.
~Fixed several potential crash bugs in the LDEF
~Fixed the LDEF to handle times with AM/PM
~Dissallow (or support) multiple selections in the status window - for now anyway
~Enable System 7's stagger on the Talk Output windows.
~Figure out why AfterDark thinks Talkd is still busy.
~Moved Alert and Auto-Reply messages to STR# resources
~Preference to reverse the panes?
~Hard cariage return for wordwrapping (cvt spc to cr after 70th column).
~Preference to disallow backspacing over returns.
v1.0.2
~Added wonder new listdef, with SICNs and the time the connection started.
~Include time & user in notification dialog, in daemon and client
~Fixed paste to work better
~Support the edit chars properly, including correct mapping of the non-correct bs char.
~Supported one more version of otalk.
v1.0.1
~Handle paste
~Remove that annoying '.' instead of backspace glitch
~Control over "who"@your.mac can be fingered (including anyone@your.mac).
~Control over "who"@your.mac appears when you talk to someone
~Fix up the TE cursors in the talk window - they prob still escape on occasion.
v1.0.0
~Reduce minimum Idle time to 1 minute
~Handle option-Quit to quit the daemon under system 7
~An automatic response if the machine is idle 5 minutes.
~7<->8 bit translation, Oh no not again.
~Talkd sometimes gives a gibber machine/user name in the notify alert
~Preference to hide the Status window when it becomes empty.
• Acknowledgements
Thanks go to Quinn for initial beta testing and proding, and to Rhys for help debugging TCP (fun fun fun!), and generally to DRJQ, the UCC, Curtin, Todd, Steve, c.s.m.p, ditmela.oz.au (& Harold), ftp.apple.com, Stephen, and anyone who uses Talk/Talkd! Special thanks go to those brave souls who risked life and Mac beta testing an unknown program. Many thanks to Stuart Cheshire for his many suggestions.
FetchNews 1.0.0b - Fetch News for use with NewsWatcher’s demo mode.
MacTCP Watcher 1.0.0 - Display MacTCP’s state information.
Bolo Finder 1.0.1 - Display the results from Mike Ellis' Bolo Tracker.
Bolo RandomMap 1.1.0 - Generate a random map for Bolo.
You can get the latest development versions from redback.cs.uwa.edu.au, but please use the major archives for released version if at all possible. Redback is a long long way from most people, and using it wastes bandwidth on the Australian-US satelite link which is overly congested already. So use the versions posted to the archives (like sumex-aim.stanford.edu or mac.archive.umich.edu), and only use the development versions if you have some specific problem - in which case tell me!)
Send postcards, comments, bug reports, and wishes to:
