SYNOPSIS

phone [options]
Options:
[-vVh] [-s switchhook char] [initial command]

DESCRIPTION

phone is a program that allows the user to communicate interactively with users on VMS systems. Two user interfaces are available: X-Windows (GTK+) and terminal (ncurses). If X-Windows is available and compiled into phone then it will be used unless the -n flag is present on the command line.
After entering the phone command you will be presented with the phone screen which has windows for the chat and a command-line at the top. If you are not talking to another user then you can enter commands directly, otherwise you will need to precede commands with the 'switch hook' character, which defaults to the percent sign (%).
You can also enter a command for phone on the shell command-line. This command will be executed when phone starts up. This makes it convenient to enter commands such as:

 'phone answer' or 'phone marsha::chrissie'

In command mode phone understands several commands:

DIAL <node::user> Call a user
ANSWER Answer an incoming call
REJECT Reject an incoming call
EXIT or QUIT Return the the command prompt
HOLD Hold all callers
UNHOLD Unhold callers
HANGUP Hangup the phone
DIR <node> Show users logged into <node>
FACSIMILE <file> Send <file>
HELP Show this help

All commands (apart from QUIT and EXIT) can be abbreviated to 3 characters and all (really all this time) commands are case insensitive.

OPTIONS

-h -?

Displays help for using the command.

-V

Show the version of phone.

-s

Set the switch hook character. This is the character used to switch from talking to another user and entering PHONE commands when using the terminal interface.x

-n

Disables use of the X-windows user interface. Use this to run phone in an xterm.