A talker is a chat system that people use to talk to each other over the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

. Dating back to the 1980s, they were a predecessor of

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of synchronous computer-mediated communication involving the immediate ( real-time) transmission of messages between two or more parties over the Internet or another computer network. Originally involv ...

. A talker is a

communication system A communications system is a collection of individual telecommunications networks systems, relay stations, tributary stations, and terminal equipment usually capable of interconnection and interoperation to form an integrated whole. Communic ...

precursor to MMORPGs and other

virtual world A virtual world (also called a virtual space or spaces) is a Computer simulation, computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many simultaneous users who can create a personal Avatar (computing), avatar and independently explore th ...

s such as ''

Second Life ''Second Life'' is a multiplayer virtual world that allows people to create an Avatar (computing), avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user-created content within a multi-user online environment. Developed for person ...

''. Talkers are a form of online

s in which multiple users are connected at the same time to chat in real-time. People log in to the talkers remotely (usually via Telnet), and have a basic text interface with which to communicate with each other. The early talkers were similar to MUDs with most of the complex game machinery stripped away, leaving just the communication level commands – hence the name "talker". ew-too was, in fact, a MUD server with the game elements removed. Most talkers are free and based on

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

software. Many of the online

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...

s used on talkers, such as "rooms" and "residency", were established by these early pioneering services and remain in use by modern 3D interfaces such as ''

''.

History of talkers

Early Internet talkers

In the school year of 1983–1984, Mark Jenks and Todd Krause, two students at Washington High School in

Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

, wrote a software program for talking among a group of people. They used the PDP-11 at the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) central office. After searching around the PDP-11 files and directories, Mark found the PDP-11 program talk, and decided that they could do better. The system had approximately 40 300–2400 bit per second

modem The Democratic Movement (, ; MoDem ) is a centre to centre-right political party in France, whose main ideological trends are liberalism and Christian democracy, and that is characterised by a strong pro-Europeanist stance. MoDem was establis ...

s attached to it, with a single phone number and a hunt group. The talk program was named TALK and was written to handle many options that are seen in

IRC IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called '' channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat ...

today: tables, private messages, actions, moderators and inviting to tables. Another talk server called NUTS, which stood for Neil's Unix Talk Server, was released in 1993 and became fairly popular on Unix systems. Its command system was broadly based on the Unaxcess BBS and being room based it took a lot of inspiration from MUDs too. The source code was given away and became the basis of a huge number of variants and rewrites during the 1990s. ''Cat Chat'' was the first Internet /

JANET Janet may refer to: Names * Janet (given name) Surname * Charles Janet (1849–1932), French engineer, inventor and biologist, known for the Left Step periodic table * Jules Janet (1861–1945), French psychologist and psychotherapist * Maur ...

talker, created in 1990.

Talker hosting

In 1996, talker.com was formed, the first server to sell space for talkers, later giving it the name Dragonroost. The server had over 90 talkers on it at one time, during the mid-1990s boom of talkers. A number of other hosts started up as alternative hosting companies to talker.com. Talker.com ceased hosting any other talkers besides its owners' on September 28, 2009.

References

External links

BBC h2g2 (wikipedia-style) Article on talkers
of some historical significance.
Playground Plus Code Base
{{Computer-mediated communication Online chat

History of talkers

Early Internet talkers

Talker hosting

See also

References

Further reading

External links