Subj : Re: Pine, TIN etc.
To   : Blue White
From : tenser
Date : Fri May 17 2024 02:56:39

On 16 May 2024 at 07:37a, Blue White pondered and said...
 
 BW> Tin!  That is the name of the news reader that I couldn't remember.  I
 BW> don't remember using ytalk, but I do remember using finger to figure out
 BW> if someone was on, and then using talk (which could have been ytalk) to
 BW> chat for a bit.

`ytalk` was (is?) a client for the `ntalk` protocol, which
let users "talk" over a bidirectional TCP connection; the
`ntalk` protocol was just a way of shipping information
about who wanted to talk to some remote machine; the conversation
itself happened over a bog-standard TCP connection.  The
`ntalk` protocol differs from the `talk` protocol in being
slightly less machine-dependent (ie, the byte order of the
computer matters in the latter, while the former uses network
byte ordering for everything.  So with the latter, you couldn't
talk between a VAX and a Sun, but with the former you could).
Neither protocol ever grew support for IPv6.

There were several different clients; one came with BSD (and
most Unixes).  `ytalk` was different; it also supported
"multiway" chat between more than two parties.

Almost none of this is used anymore.  Kind of sad, in a way.

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