Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 15:54:53 -0600 From: Patrick Douglas CrispenReply to: TOURBUS-REQUEST@LISTSERV.AOL.COM To: Multiple recipients of list TOURBUS Subject: TOURBUS - 22 FEBRUARY 1996 - FOOTHILLS /~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~/~~~|~\ | "Why | Surf When / You Can | Ride The | Bus?" / | \ |__________|__________/__________|__________|________/ | \ / /______|----\ / Send INFO TOURBUS to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM ///////| | | Or visit http://csbh.mhv.net/~bobrankin/tourbus |//////| | | |//////| | ~~~/~~~\~/~~~\~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~/~~~\~~~~ \___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/ TOURBUS - TUESDAY, 20 FEBRUARY 1996 TODAY'S STOP: FOOTHILLS TODAY'S ADDRESS: telnet://toybox.infomagic.com:2010/ Today, we are going to talk about one of my favorite places on the Net: Foothills. Foothills is a MUD (a multiple user device) where you can participate in real-time, text-based conversations with people from all over the world. Best of all, Foothills is FREE. Before we get too far into today's TOURBUS post though, I want to say three things about Multiple User Devices: 1. There are hundreds of MUDS on the net, and everyone has a different view on which MUD is the best. Foothills is just one of DOZENS of extremely well-run and interesting MUDs on the Net (you can find the addresses of other MUDs in Yanoff's list). 2. Most of the best MUDs (like Foothills) have "super-users," administrators chosen by the site that is hosting the MUD who stay online to police the MUD (usually by "booting" people who cuss or offend the other users). Because of this, most of the well-managed MUDs are much more friendly and much less offensive than the non-monitored talker services like Internet Relay Chat -- although there is no such thing as a completely "sanitized" talker. 3. MUDS are seriously addictive, and are very large "time sponges." Please try to remember that there are some things in life that are more important than the MUDs ... although at this time I can't seem to rember what these things are :) LOGGING IN ---------- You can access Foothills for FREE through telnet by telnetting to toybox.infomagic.com 2010 For those of you who are used to URL format, Foothills' URL is telnet://toybox.infomagic.com:2010/ and for the gear-heads out there who like IP addresses, Foothills' IP address is 165.113.211.4 port 2010 Foothills is only accessible through telnet, though, so you will need to use a telnet client to access any of these addresses. One word of warning: from time to time, Foothills gets full; if this happens and Foothills will not allow you to connect, just try to connect a little later. Once you have connected, Foothills will ask you to Please enter your name: Don't enter your name! Instead, you need to enter a one-word, character name (e.g.,. BusRider, BillyBob, Paramour, etc.). Think hard ... this one word character name will be your identity while you are on Foothills. The hard part is picking a name that isn't already being used by a "resident" (a person who uses Foothills so much that they have their own permanent character name). If you choose a character name that is already being used, you will be prompted to Please enter your password: If that happens, just type a bunch of gibberish as the password. Foothills will respond by saying Hey !! that ain't right ! Wrong password .... closing connection. Then, just reconnect and try again. It may take you a little while to find a unique character name (there are 9,759 residents on Foothills), but keep trying. Once you find an unique character name, Foothills will show you a whole bunch of welcome screens. READ THESE CAREFULLY. Thrown in amongst the welcome screens are some questions that you must answer, like You entered the name 'XXXXXX' when you first logged in. Is this the name that you wish to be known as on the program ? Answer Y or N: and The program requires that you enter your gender. This is used solely for the purposes of correct english and grammar. If you object to this, then simply type 'n' for not applicable. Enter (M)ale, (F)emale or (N)ot applicable: Foothills will also ask you to read and accept a disclaimer saying that you won't hunt down and wound the administrators if you don't like Foothills. You can either accept this disclaimer (by typing "continue" when prompted) or exit Foothills (by typing "end"). As I said earlier, Foothills is an extremely well managed talker. As their welcome messages says, "[w]hat you do on your own is private, but, should anything you do be abusive, offensive, or annoying to other characters, then be prepared to bear the full brunt of the consequences. This may involve anything deemed suitable by the administrators or superusers including complete banishment from the program and/or 'real life' actions." You should also note that Foothills has a very strong position on sexual harassment: "Please note that sexual harassment is *not* tolerated here, even fairly mild forms (such as shouting things like 'any single girls on'). Offenders will be removed." ... I told you that Foothills was cool :) IN THE ROOMS ------------ Once you enter Foothills, you will be dropped into a room with a couple of other people in it. This is really what Foothills is all about. Foothills has a whole bunch of "rooms," and the people in each of the rooms are able to "talk" to the other people in that room by typing what they want to say. Depending on the time of day and what room you are dropped into, your screen may start filling up with the conversations of the other people in that room. Don't panic. First off, let's get you into a "quiet" room (mine) and show you how to use this thing. Type VISIT SIMGOD and press enter. SimGod is my Foothills character name (I used to be a Simulations Director at Space Camp, and the kids nicknamed me SimGod), and by typing VISIT SIMGOD you will be taken to my personal room on Foothills (all residents can have their own personal rooms that they "decorate" according to their own tastes). The only people who will ever be in my room are other TOURBUS riders and myself, so it should be pretty quiet in there. Once you get into my room, you should also type EARMUFFS This will block system-wide shouts, which can be quite annoying. SAYING STUFF ------------ To "say" something to everyone in the room that you are in, just type a " or ' before what you want to say. For example, if I wanted to say Anyone want to buy a really fast graphing calculator I would type "Anyone want to buy a really fast graphing calculator or 'Anyone want to buy a really fast graphing calculator and then press enter. Once I press enter, the following will appear on the screens of everyone who is in the same room as me SimGod says 'Anyone want to buy a really fast graphing calculator' This is the way that conversations take place on Foothills. One person types something, another person replies ... and so on :) So, if you want to say something to everyone in the same room as you, you just need to put a " or ' before what you what to say. Want to see something cool, though? If I type "Anyone want to buy a really fast graphing calculator? the following will appear on everyone's screen SimGod asks 'Anyone want to buy a really fast graphing calculator?' What's the difference? Well, Foothills noticed the question mark and changed the statement that appears on everyone's screen from "SimGod says" to "SimGod asks." Is this cool or what? Here are a couple of other commands that will help you on Foothills: THINK ----- You can "think" something instead of saying it by using the THINK command (you can type THINK in either upper or lower case). For example, if I type THINK I like coffee the following will appear on the screens of everyone in the same room as me SimGod thinks . o O ( I like coffee ) So, if I typed the following three lines (hitting enter at the end of the lines) THINK I like coffee THINK I like tea THINK I like the java jive and it likes me the following will appear on the screens of everyone in the same room as me SimGod thinks . o O ( I like coffee ) SimGod thinks . o O ( I like tea ) SimGod thinks . o O ( I like the java jive and it likes me ) EMOTE ----- You can not only say and think things on Foothills, you can also DO things using the emote command (:). Just put a colon before what you want to do. One word of warning: to be grammatically correct, think of the colon as representing the words "my character." For example, to hit myself over the head for my obscure reference to the java jive, I would type : hits himself over the head for his obscure reference to the java jive and the following will appear on the screens of everyone in the same room as me Simgod hits himself over the head for his obscure reference to the java jive X ------------- To find out a little more about someone who is currently logged into Foothills, type X replacing with the name of the character that you want to find out more about. For example, if I were logged onto Foothills and you wanted to find out a little more about my character, you would type X SIMGOD FINGER ------------------ This command is like X , but it allows you to find out information about characters who may not be logged into Foothills at the time. HELP # ------ There are a WHOLE BUNCH more Foothills commands. To find out more about ALL of the Foothills commands, type HELP # where # is a number from 1 to 15. For example, to see help screen 1, you would type HELP 1 and to see help screen 2, you would type HELP 2 Your best bet is to do this in a quiet room (like mine (type VISIT SIMGOD)) so that you aren't interrupted by the conversation in the room. OTHER STUFF ----------- When a newbie (someone who is not a Foothills resident or who does not know much about Foothills) enters a room that you are in, the following will appear on your screen appears flying through the air and lands in a heap on the ground. Residents enter with a little more class. For example, when I enter a room, the following message appears SimGod emerges from a mysterious fog bank and shouts "ROLL TIDE" Also, when a newbie exits Foothills, the following message will appear jumps up into the air and disappears with a loud *POP* ! Ready to start talking with the rest of the world? To leave my room and go to a public room, type any of the following words and press enter HILLTOP VALLEY SHADOW SOUND SIDE BRIDGE These are all public rooms where there are bound to be LOTS of people chatting their little hearts out (the largest room is usually the HILLTOP). Oh, and when you get tired of talking and you want to quit Foothills, just type QUIT SOME FINAL WORDS ---------------- Foothills is an amazing and fun place to meet new people. Unfortunately, Foothills (and for that matter, other talkers) is a magnet for liars. It is very easy for someone to exaggerate about themselves online, so it happens quite often. I deliberately used the words "character name" instead of "userid" in writing today's TOURBUS. Think of ALL of the people that you meet online as characters -- people pretending to be something that they aren't -- and you'll have a much more enjoyable time online :) +-----------------> BIG-TIME MAGAZINES FOR $10 A YEAR? <--------------+ | ONLY TOURBUS RIDERS KNOW HOW! | | | | Magazine Express has exclusive TOURBUS discounts others can only | | dream about. Plus, Dr. Bob's new "Internet Goodies" is FREE. This | | is a limited time offer, so get details now by sending email to: | +------------------------> tourbus@magazines.com <--------------------+ --------------------------------- TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORDS OF THE DAY --------------------------------- ROOL - Adjective. Not urban. FORD - Preposition. To advance. Usage: "The rool markins wanna see this country move ford." (Special thanks goes to Pat Vedomske and Dennis DeVendra for today's wurds) YOU CAN FIND ALL OF THE OLD SOUTHERN WORDS OF THE DAY ON THE SOUTHERN WORD HOMEPAGE AT http://ua1vm.ua.edu/~crispen/word.html ... and since I am equal opportunity satirist, here is a NORTHERN word of the day for you as well: BEG - Noun. A paper, cloth, or plastic container. Usage: "You wanna beg for your groceries? (Special thanks goes to Talbert Malone for today's wurd) ====================================================================== SUBSCRIBE : Send SUBSCRIBE TOURBUS Firstname Lastname to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM unSUBSCRIBE: Send SIGNOFF TOURBUS to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Web Site : http://csbh.mhv.net/~bobrankin/tourbus (stop in for back issues and the logo contest) Advertising: E-mail BobRankin@MHV.net w/ Subject: SEND TBRATES ====================================================================== TOURBUS - (c) Copyright 1996, Patrick Crispen and Bob Rankin All rights reserved. Redistribution is allowed only with permission. Send this copy to 3 friends and tell them to get on the Bus! (\__/) .~ ~. )) /O O ./ .' Patrick Douglas Crispen {O__, \ { pcrispe1@ua1vm.ua.edu / . . ) \ The University of Alabama |-| '-' \ } )) http://ua1vm.ua.edu/~crispen/crispen.html .( _( )_.' '---.~_ _ _& Warning: squirrels.
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