NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     talk - talk to another user

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     talk [-Hs] person [ttyname]

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     talk is a visual communication program  which  copies  lines
from your terminal
 to that of another user.

     The command arguments are as follows:

     -H        Don't  escape  characters  with  the high bit set.
This may be useful
 for certain character sets, but could cause erratic behaviour
 on some terminals.

     -s        Use  smooth scrolling in the talk window.  The default is to
              clear the next two rows and jump from the bottom of
the window
              to the top.

     person   If you wish to talk to someone on your own machine,
then person
              is just the person's login name.  If  you  wish  to
talk to a user
              on  another  host,  then person is of the form `user@host'.

     ttyname  If you wish to talk to a user who is logged in more
than once,
              the  ttyname  argument  may be used to indicate the
appropriate
              terminal  name,  where  ttyname  is  of  the   form
`ttyXX'.

     When first called, talk sends the message

           Message from Talk_Daemon@localhost...
           talk:  connection requested by your_name@your_machine.
           talk: respond with: talk your_name@your_machine

     to the user you wish to talk to.  At this point, the recipient of the
     message should reply by typing

           $ talk  your_name@your_machine

     It  doesn't matter from which machine the recipient replies,
as long as
     the login name is the same.  If the machine is not  the  one
to which the
     talk request was sent, it is noted on the screen.  Once communication is
     established, the two parties may type  simultaneously,  with
their output
     appearing in separate windows.  Typing control-L (`^L') will
cause the
     screen to be reprinted, while the erase, kill, and word kill
characters
     will  behave  normally.   To  exit,  just type the interrupt
character; talk
     then moves the cursor to the bottom of the  screen  and  restores the terminal
 to its previous state.

     Permission  to  talk  may be denied or granted by use of the
mesg(1) command.
  At the outset talking is allowed.  Certain  commands,
in particular
     nroff(1)  and  pr(1),  disallow messages in order to prevent
messy output.

FILES    [Toc]    [Back]

     /etc/hosts     to find the recipient's machine
     /var/run/utmp  to find the recipient's tty

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

     mail(1), mesg(1), who(1), write(1), talkd(8)

HISTORY    [Toc]    [Back]

     The talk command appeared in 4.2BSD.

BUGS    [Toc]    [Back]

     The version of talk released with  4.3BSD  uses  a  protocol
that is incompatible
  with the protocol used in the version released with
4.2BSD.

OpenBSD      3.6                           June      6,      1993