TALK(1)                    OpenBSD Reference Manual                    TALK(1)

NAME
     talk - talk to another user

SYNOPSIS
     talk [-Hs] person [ttyname]

DESCRIPTION
     talk is a visual communication program which copies lines from your ter-
     minal to that of another user.

     The command arguments are as follows:

     -H       Don't escape characters with the high bit set.  This may be use-
              ful for certain character sets, but could cause erratic be-
              haviour on some terminals.

     -s       Use smooth scrolling in the talk window.  The default is to
              clear the next two rows and jump from the bottom of the window
              to the top.

     person   If you wish to talk to someone on your 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 `user@host'.

     ttyname  If you wish to talk to a user who is logged in more than once,
              the ttyname argument may be used to indicate the appropriate
              terminal name, where ttyname is of the form `ttyXX'.

     When first called, talk sends the message

           Message from Talk_Daemon@localhost...
           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
     the login name is the same.  If the machine is not the one to which the
     talk request was sent, it is noted on the screen.  Once communication is
     established, the two parties may type simultaneously, with their output
     appearing in separate windows.  Typing control-L (`^L') will cause the
     screen to be reprinted, while the erase, kill, and word kill characters
     will behave normally.  To exit, just type the interrupt character; talk
     then moves the cursor to the bottom of the screen and restores the termi-
     nal to its previous state.

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

FILES
     /etc/hosts     to find the recipient's machine
     /var/run/utmp  to find the recipient's tty

SEE ALSO
     mail(1), mesg(1), who(1), write(1), talkd(8)

STANDARDS
     The talk utility is compliant with the IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (``POSIX'')
     specification, though its presence is optional.

     The flags [-Hs] are extensions to that specification.

HISTORY
     The talk command appeared in 4.2BSD.

BUGS
     The version of talk released with 4.3BSD uses a protocol that is incom-
     patible with the protocol used in the version released with 4.2BSD.

OpenBSD 4.7                    February 10, 2009                             2
