SYNOPSIS
party ON|OFF|WHEREIS [ - ] dnvDESCRIPTION
Operating systems being what they are, the admin people can easily grow tired of command responses that resemble dyslexic eugene-speak filtered through Kernighan and Ritchie's collective back-brains. To alleviate this, we have included a slightly more `casual' mode, in which the responses to all commands are first filtered through a customising routine (DUDE) , which makes them sound a little more friendly while retaining their full information content (usually). The rooted(c) system prompt is changed to `What now, dude?' and output from each command is terminated by `No problem, dude.'OPTIONS
- -v
- Verbose mode (ALL commands have a `verbose' mode). When this option is present, all filtered responses are preceeded by a message: `This response has been parsed by the DUDE filter and is not intended to be some sort of sleazy come-on.'
- -d
- Don't restart all processes after recompiling the /uselss/libs/eugene file (see below). This alows any important tasks to complete beforehand.
- -n
- Notify all users that they are about to be force-logged out and force-logged in again.
- ON
- Activates the DUDE filter.
- OFF
- De-activates the DUDE filter.
- WHEREIS
- Doesn't do anything, but we couldn't resist it.
EXAMPLES
%-) party onWhat now, dude?
To compare the differing responses, here is output provided by the ispi -s command, with party OFF and party ON:
party OFF
line who why how long
==========================================================
000 rooted that's you, dweeb! epoch
----------------------------------------------------------
00F wp she's supposed to be 0:44:12
typing up the end of
financial year report,
but she's been doing her
resume when she thinks
no-one is watching
----------------------------------------------------------
014 maint playing games, as usual 0:51:16
party ON
Well, let's see who's on, eh? There's you, of course, on line 000 (Imagine that! Hahaha!) Oh look, on serIOus line 00F, it's that cute little secretary - looks like she's lost her keyboard template again, she's been hitting the escape key for the past five minutes! AND OF COURSE, the guys down in maintenance are playing `cosmic ballcrushers'. As usual. Well, who else, um, no-one really interesting like, ya know, oh hang on, DTR is toggling on serIOus line 03D.. oh, no problem, it's that stuffed modem again. You want maybe I should send some AMail to maintenance and get 'em to look at it? No problem, dude.
What now, dude?
FILES
- /uselss/libs/bill&ted/DUDE
-
This is the pipe process, usually started at system shoe, which lies idle until party ON is issued.
- /uselss/libs/eugene
-
Contains all of the ordinary, ho-hum confusing computer - jargonese responses which commands ordinarily issue. Text file.
- /uselss/libs/eugene.spoo
-
compiled version of the eugene file.
- /ephemeral/eugene.chex
-
Checksum for the compiled eugene file.
BUGS
The -n option can be slow.If the n option is issued, some users in a wi editing session may not receive the `warning, restart imminent' message until after the restart.
There is no way selectively to follow symbolic links.
Sunburne Computer, Inc. 9 October 1991