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Talk

This is the Net equivalent of a telephone conversation and requires that both you and the person you want to talk to have access to this function and are online at the same time. To use it, type

talk user@site.name


where `user@site.name' is the e-mail address of the other person. She will see something like this on her screen:

talk: connection requested by yourname@site.name
talk: respond with:  talk yourname@site.name

To start the conversation, she should then type (at her host system's command line):

talk yourname@site.name

where that is your e-mail address. Both of you will then get a top and bottom window on your screen. She will see everything you type in one window; you'll see everything she types in the other. To disconnect, hit control-C.

One note: Public-access sites that use Sun computers sometimes have trouble with the talk program. If talk does not work, try typing `otalk' or `ntalk' instead. However, the party at the other end will have to have the same program online for the connection to work.

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