4.3BSD - /usr/man/cat1/talk.0

TALK(1)                                                                TALK(1)


NAME
       talk - talk to another user

SYNOPSIS
       talk person [ ttyname ]

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

       If you wish to talk to someone on you 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 :

                           host!user  or
                           host.user  or
                           host:user  or
                           user@host

       though host@user is perhaps preferred.

       If you want to talk to a user who is logged in more than once, the tty���
       name argument may be used to indicate the appropriate terminal name.

       When first called, it sends the message

            Message from TalkDaemon@his_machine...
            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
       his login-name is the same.  Once communication is established, the two
       parties may type simultaneously, with their output appearing  in  sepa‐
       rate  windows.  Typing control L will cause the screen to be reprinted,
       while your erase, kill, and word kill characters will work in  talk  as
       normal.   To  exit, just type your interrupt character; talk then moves
       the cursor to the bottom of the screen and restores the terminal.

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


FILES
       /etc/hosts     to find the recipient’s machine
       /etc/utmp to find the recipient’s tty

SEE ALSO
       mesg(1), who(1), mail(1), write(1)

BUGS
       The version of talk(1) released with 4.3BSD uses  a  protocol  that  is
       incompatible  with  the  protocol  used  in  the  version released with
       4.2BSD.


4.2 Berkeley Distribution         May 5, 1986                          TALK(1)