Subject:
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Re: LUGNet Chat
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.general
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Date:
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Thu, 8 Oct 1998 22:29:29 GMT
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Viewed:
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1133 times
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Alex Wetmore wrote:
>
> Richard Franks wrote in message
> <361CCF8D.873@__no_spam_please_im_veggie__spider.com>...
> > The main draw for a talker over IRC would be that you can access it via
> > standard telnet - which is a lot simpler for most users as virtually
> > everyone with an internet connection has a version of telnet.
>
> This is also a drawback (and I can say this with experience, after
> developing unix bbs software which was mostly used as a talker in its heyday
> (1994 or so). to see it telnet to yabbs.phred.org port 8888 or go to
> http://www.phred.org/yabbs and download a yabbs client).
Urgh! The reason that site has lag is because each individual character
is sent, processed and returned - that is a very inefficient mechanism -
say typing one line would generate at least 160 packets going across the
network! The way most talkers work is that the characters that the user
types are echoed locally only until the user presses return at which
point the entire line is sent, which can be processed in one and
returned. Ie - 2 packets for any length of line. Actually, there are
probably additional acknowledgement packets in both cases, but I'm not
100% certain. I'm not trying to be pedantic - but the site that you
mentioned wasn't really in line with what I was suggesting :)
> For an
> international community (what LUGNet should be) telnet based talkers don't
> work that well. Telnet is an character by character interactive protocol
> which has terrible lag when trying to talk from across the world.
I think that is true for the talker you mentioned, but not necessarily
for the 'send-entire line mechanism'.
> Additionally most of the telnet based talkers that I've taken a look at
> (haven't looked in a few years) have pretty bad user interfaces.
A talker which uses this (terra.pdnt.net 3636) isn't the best talker in
the world - but you'd get the idea!
The user interfaces differ - the most common talker commands (say -
gives a message to everyone in the same room as you; and tell - sends a
private message to one person only) are easy to pick up and intuitive.
It also seems a bit easier than doing the same in IRC with multiple
windows.
> An IRC network would allow someone to use a graphical client. If we want
> something that is easy for users to use then I'm sure someone could develop
> a Java based client to IRC (or there must be 10 or 15 out there already)
> which could be run interactively on a webpage. For the rest of us who
> already use IRC (I also use it on a private network... the public ones
> aren't very interesting) we could just open up another session to LUGNet
> when we have a chance to talk Lego (probably not too often for me).
Does it need a GUI? It seems like a lot of extra baggage :) I'd need to
download some IRC thing for my sparc, or else use netscape.. which would
probably crash under the excitement ;) I think the core learning
concepts of IRC and Talkers are the same.. so adding graphics won't make
it easier, but it might restrict someone from connecting who doesn't
have the right software or machine.
> Finally, servers could be setup around the world to make interactive
> performance better for those who are reaching LUGNet from other corners of
> the globe. A telnet based talker system would mostly leave them high and dry.
Having had experience with a small mud run on a slow server in England,
with regular players from the US, Europe etc.. I don't think that this
is true - at least for the local-echo ones :)
> A proprietry client/server system (such as the yabbs system that I
> wrote) could be developed,
There are already talkers that can be set up and running within a few
minutes - the more popular ones come already ported to most
environments.
> but it would probably be easier for most folks if the widely available
> IRC system was just used.
IRC puts another barrier between the user and access - some
workplaces/unis won't allow it to be used or installed and some
computers don't have it anyway - requiring someone to download it.
IRC is good for getting to know facts, but Talkers are good for getting
to know people.
I guess a more important issue is whether Todd would be willing to host
either a Talker or an IRC network.. otherwise this discussion is kinda
moot ;)
Richard
--
Remove everything in-between and including the '_'s to reply!
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: LUGNet Chat
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| Richard Franks <richard@__no_spam_p...pider.com> wrote in message 361D3CC9.3F87@__no_s...der.com... (...) heyday (...) Talkers of the type which you are talking about are very hard to use unless you use a special telnet client such as tinyfugue. (...) (26 years ago, 9-Oct-98, to lugnet.admin.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: LUGNet Chat
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| Richard Franks wrote in message <361CCF8D.873@__no_s...er.com>... (...) This is also a drawback (and I can say this with experience, after developing unix bbs software which was mostly used as a talker in its heyday (1994 or so). to see it telnet to (...) (26 years ago, 8-Oct-98, to lugnet.admin.general)
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