Telehack: May the command line live forever

Telehack

Telehack is a simulation of a stylized arpanet/usenet, circa 1985-1990.
It is a full multi-user simulation, including 26,600+ simulated hosts
from the early net, thousands of files from the era, a collection of
adventure and IF games, a working BASIC interpreter with a library of
programs to run, simulated historical users, and more.

Connecting
----------

On the web: https://telehack.com/

Telehack supports the telnet protocol on ports 23, 1337, 8080, and 31173.
Open a shell and type:

telnet telehack.com

Telehack also supports the secure shell (SSH) protocol on port 2222:

ssh -p 2222 guest@telehack.com

HTTPS and SSH provide encryption, but telnet provides no encryption. After
creating a username, you can connect via SSH with your username instead of
guest. Also, you can optionally add a public key with the SET KEY command.

Telehack is even available via dial-up modem! The Telehack Division for
Innovations in Copper (DIC) is pleased to offer dialup access at:

+1 (213) TELEHACK
(+1 (213) 835-3422)

Baud rates of up to 33.6 kbps are available. Higher speeds may be available.
There is a 15-minute limit per call and this 3rd-party service may be
throttled due to POTS conditions. Check with your network operator for call
charges before connecting.

(Telehack is not responsible for the availability, reliability or any costs
associated with this service and receives no income of any kind from its use.)

Accessibility
-------------

Non-sighted users: please type STTY /dumb after connecting to Telehack.
This will invoke plain terminal mode in the Z-code games and avoid using
ANSI cursor-addressing.

For users connecting with Teletypes or other Teleprinter Terminal setups
please type STTY /tty after connection to switch Telehack into a more Teletype
friendly mode.

About this Document
-------------------

Telehack is case-insensitive. Commands are often shown in uppercase to
distinguish them from surrounding text. Note that you do not need to type
commands in all-caps. For example:

Type DIR for a list of files

You may type DIR or dir to obtain a list of files.

In help messages, <> signifies required arguments to commands, whereas
[] signifies optional arguments. The pipe symbol | signifies "or" or an
alternative. For example:

send <user|port> [message]

means that a user or port must follow the send command, but that the
message argument is optional (send will prompt for messages lines if you
do not specify one on the command line).

@ send forbin hello
@ send 15 hello

@ send forbin
forbin> hello
forbin>

Getting Help
------------

You can type ? at any prompt to get a list of available commands:

@ ?
Command, one of the following:
2048 ? a2 ac advent aquarium
basic bf c8 cal calc ching
clear clock cowsay date ddate echo
eliza factor figlet finger fnord geoip
help ipaddr joke login mac md5
morse newuser notes octopus phoon pig
ping pong primes privacy qr rain
rand rfc rig roll rot13 sleep
starwars traceroute typespeed units uptime usenet
users uumap uupath uuplot weather when
zc zork zrun

The HELP command provides one-line descriptions of command functions,
including any modifier arguments that may be available. Examples:

@ help
@ help telnet
@ help ftp

Getting Unstuck
---------------

Any command may be terminated by typing ^C (control-C). To log out of a
remote host or exit a subshell, type ^D (control-D), EXIT or QUIT.

Note: The Apple II interpreter requires typing ^C twice to exit.

Control Characters
------------------

A control key (CTRL) initiates a number of system functions when it is used
in conjunction with another character.

To type a control character, hold down the control key, and at the same
time press the character you want. For example: to type a CTRL-C, hold
down the control key and at the same time press the letter C. In most
cases this prints (echoes) on your terminal as ^C. In system documentation,
a control character such as control-C may also be described as CTRL-C or ^C.

Special control characters:

ctrl-C interrupt program
ctrl-N next line
ctrl-P previous line
ctrl-R quick relay (requires backgrounded relay)
ctrl-T print system status
ctrl-W delete word
(up arrow) previous line
(next arrow) next line
(tab) autocomplete next command/file/user/host

Quick Fun
---------

Type STARWARS to view the pinnacle of ASCII-mation, a full-length rendition
of Star Wars in ASCII.

Typing JOKE will display a joke randomly selected from a massive unified
historical arpanet/caltech joke database.

Type Aquarium to watch an animated aquarium in ASCII art.

NLI Lobby
---------

When you first connect to Telehack, you will be in the not-logged-in
lobby. The NLI lobby is indicated by the '.' prompt:

$ telnet telehack.com Trying 64.13.147.30... Connected
to telehack.com. Escape character is '^]'.

Connected to TELEHACK port 13

It is 8:16 am on Saturday, April 30, 2011 in Mountain View, California, USA.
There are 10 local users. There are 24139 hosts on the network.

Type ? for a command list.
Type HELP for a more detailed command listing.
Press control-C to interrupt any command.

May the command line live forever.

Command, one of the following:
2048 ? a2 ac advent aquarium
basic bf c8 cal calc ching
clear clock cowsay date ddate echo
eliza factor figlet finger fnord geoip
help ipaddr joke login mac md5
morse newuser notes octopus phoon pig
ping pong primes privacy qr rain
rand rfc rig roll rot13 sleep
starwars traceroute typespeed units uptime usenet
users uumap uupath uuplot weather when
zc zork zrun
.

A limited subset of commands are available in the lobby.

To login or create a new account, type LOGIN.

Pager Commands
--------------

When viewing any paginated output on Telehack, you may receive a --More--
prompt. This may be seen in the commands type, cat, more, less, as well as
any command which produces paginated output.

At the --More-- prompt, the following single-key commands may be typed:

space show next page
b back one page
q quit
g go to top
G go to bottom
return down one line
j down one line
k up one line
? search up for a given string
/ search down for a given string
n go to the next search match
N go to the previous search match

The pager also supports several pipes. These can be appended to commands that
produce paginated output:

head -n <n> only show the first <n> lines of output
tail -n <n> only show the last <n> lines of output
uniq strip repeated lines from output
grep <pattern> show lines matching pattern
grep -c <pattern> show number of lines matching
grep -i <pattern> case insensitive matching
grep -v <pattern> show lines NOT matching pattern
sort [field] sort output (field can be column header or number)
sort -r [field] reverse sorting
wc -c show number of characters
wc -l show number of lines (including header)
wc -m show maximum line length
wc -w show number of words
cut -f <r> extract fields in the range(s) <r>
cut -c <r> extract columns in the range(s) <r>
cut -d <d> specify field delimiter for extraction

For example:

@users | grep New York, NY | sort username
abcde758 Abcde758 1.1y New York, NY
achamian Achamian 9.7y New York, NY
acidburn hack the planet 51m New York, NY
alanpear Alanpear 5.2y New York, NY
...

@finger | head -n 6
TELEHACK SYSTEM STATUS 2023-Oct-20 21:44:47
109 users load 0.76 up 28d

port username status last what where
---- -------- ------ ---- ---- -----
0 operator System Operator 7m console

@dojo /list|cut -f1-2,5|head -n4
challenge verified
--------- --------
* adler32 yes
* anglesum yes

@cat cars
audi:bmw:citroen:delorean
alfa romeo:bentley:cadillac:daihatsu
aston martin:bugatti:chevrolet:dodge

@cat cars|cut -f 2 -d:
bmw
bentley
bugatti

@cat cars|cut -f 1-3 -d:
audi:bmw:citroen
alfa romeo:bentley:cadillac
aston martin:bugatti:chevrolet

@cat numbers
1234567890abcdef
1234567890abcdef
1234567890abcdef
1234567890abcdef
1234567890abcdef
1234567890abcdef
1234567890abcdef
1234567890abcdef

@cat numbers|cut -c 1-5,2-9,5-7,8,15
123456789e
123456789e
123456789e
123456789e
123456789e
123456789e
123456789e
123456789e

Network Hosts
-------------

There are approximately 26,600 virtual hosts on the Telehack network.
These represent systems that were on the early Usenet/arpanet as well
as defunct BBS systems from the 80's and 90's.

Type HOSTS to see a partial list of network hosts. Type HELP HOSTS for
more information on the hosts command.

A collection of retro files has been distributed across the hosts in the
network. The files were sourced from the extensive archive assembled by
Jason Scott of Textfiles.com as well as other sources.

Telnetting to Hosts
-------------------

You may telnet to any host appearing in your netstat list:

@ netstat
host organization location
---- ------------ --------
sunkist Sun Microsystems Inc. Irvine, California
! mimsy Computer Science Dept., Univ of Maryland College Park, MD
spgh01 Church of the Holy Sepulchre Butler, PA
* vitam6 Vitalink Communications Fremont, CA
hell Clinton Reilly Campaigns Alameda, CA
accom Axial Corp. Belmont, CA

@ telnet mimsy
Trying...
Connected to MIMSY

Computer Science Dept., University of Maryland, College Park
DEC Vax-8600 4.3BSD

Authentication successful.
Last login: Thu May 5 16:32:51 2011

WARNING: You must have prior authorization to access this system.
All connections are logged and monitored. By connecting to
to this system you fully consent to all monitoring.
Unauthorized access or use will be prosecuted to the full
extent of the law.

mimsy$

If you have not yet hacked into a host, you can try to login as the guest
user. The full set of commands on the host may not be available if you are
logged in as guest.

The * symbol in the netstat output denotes that you have a login account on
that host, and the ! symbol denotes that you have root there. These symbols
also appear in the output of other commands, such as uuplot.

Dialing a host
--------------

You may connect to a host by using the DIAL command.

@dial 3148372840
dialing ATDT (314) 837-2840 CONNECT 9600

Connected to THEOASIS

Hacking a Host
--------------

@ dir *.exe
porthack.exe wardial.exe
@ porthack
[run porthack.exe]
host? mimsy
probing MIMSY for open sockets...

Once a host has been successfully hacked, you should be able to log into it
using your Telehack username and password.

Note that hosts which have been hacked and which you can log in to with
your username/password are identified in the netstat list with a '*'.

Collecting and Moving Programs
------------------------------

DIR *.exe or ls *.exe. You will be able to transfer programs between hosts
using the FTP command. On each host, a dedicated part of the disk has been
made available to you, in which you can store these programs.

Be careful not to overfill it, check your disk usage with the DF command
before transferring a file.

Example of an FTP session:

is1$ ftp uunet
Connected to uunet.
220 uunet FTP server (Version 4.109 Wed Nov 19 21:52:18 CST 1986) ready.
Name (uunet:johndoe): johndoe
331 Password required for johndoe
Password: ********
230 User johndoe logged in
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using BIN mode to transfer files.
ftp> put porthack.exe
200 PORT command successful
...

Historical Users
----------------

The 26,600 virtual hosts within Telehack were real systems available via
modem dialup, fidonet, uucp/usenet, or on the arpanet in the 1980's and
90's. Real people used these systems and could often be seen logged in
doing work, reading, socializing or playing games.

Data archaeology applied against the oldest available uucp archives, UUCP
network maps from the era, as well as other available electronic sources
has allowed Telehack to reconstruct the online occupants of these vanished
network hosts.

To see users logged into a Telehack host, use the FINGER @host command:

@ finger @sgi
[sgi]
Login Name Tty Idle Login Time Office Office Phone
vjs Vernon Schryver pts/10 3h Apr 29 06:34 (58.12.207.23)
rpw3 Rob Warnock pts/13 6h Apr 25 10:31 (95.16.201.17)
vic Victor Mitnick pts/6 1 Apr 28 23:33 (53.23.126.26)
greg Greg Chesson pts/9 3 Apr 27 15:05 (64.23.138.34)
davidf David Fenstemaker pts/8 2d Apr 24 05:10 (63.18.194.22)
cjohnson Chris Johnson pts/12 4h Apr 29 12:21 (64.23.149.19)
ian Ian Clements pts/4 6h Apr 23 22:03 (22.13.234.36)
baskett Forest Baskett pts/2 29 Apr 27 00:54 (28.4.37.13)
pchin Phil Chin pts/7 2h Apr 30 04:31 (98.23.18.35)
root Superuser pts/3 1d Apr 28 08:27 (97.18.154.15)
artibee Mary Artibee pts/1 3h Apr 23 09:19 (98.16.192.38)
wen Wen-ching Chow pts/5 2d Apr 29 04:36 (33.11.81.7)

@ finger @chinet
[chinet]
Login Name Tty Idle Login Time Office Office Phone
schneier Bruce Schneier pts/20 3h Apr 26 12:09 (62.3.122.13)
randy Randy Suess pts/5 3h Apr 27 17:37 (71.22.51.21)
odesta Odesta Corp. pts/27 20 Apr 29 17:34 (76.23.223.30)
ward Ward Christensen pts/0 7h Apr 28 06:37 (109.10.48.39)
saj Stephen Jacobs pts/8 1h Apr 23 11:59 (57.10.70.35)
...

Guessing Passwords
------------------

Users in the past did not always choose strong passwords. A common
hacking method was to try various common passwords such as "secret",
"love", "trustno1", etc. to find a way into a system.

As well, upon closer inspection of hosts, you might find
that you don't have to guess. . .

Z-Code Games
------------

A collection of games written for the Z-Machine have been distributed
across the hosts in the Telehack network. Z-Code games are identified by
the .GAM extension:

@ ls *.gam
advent.gam lostpig.gam zork.gam

@ run advent.gam

Welcome to Adventure

At End Of Road
You are standing at the end of a road before a small
brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream
flows out of the building and down a gully.

BASIC Interpreter
-----------------

To enter the basic interpreter, type BASIC.

@ basic
Dartmouth DTSS TeleBASIC (c) 1964,1966,1969,1970,1971,1979

The basic interpreter subsystem has a number of historical programs
compiled from the SIMTEL archives as well as other sources. To see a full
list of available programs, type DIR within basic. You can load a program
with LOAD or begin execution with RUN.

Basic commands are:

> help
delete delete a user program
dir directory of basic programs
help print this list
list list the program in memory
load <file> load program from file
quit exit the basic interpreter
renumber [start[,inc]] renumber the program in memory
run run the program in memory
run <program> load and run the specified program file
save <file> save a user program

Example basic session:

@ basic
Dartmouth DTSS TeleBASIC (c) 1964,1966,1969,1970,1971,1979
> ?
Command, one of the following:
delete dir help list load quit run renumber
save
> dir
23matches.bas 3dplot.bas aceyducey.bas aceyducy.bas
astrnmy2.bas bar.bas basketball.bas basketbl.bas
batnum.bas baz.bas bigcal2.bas birthday.bas
bobo.bas bombsaway.bas bombsawy.bas boxing.bas
budget.bas bug.bas bunny.bas buzzword.bas
calendar.bas calendr5.bas change.bas chemist.bas
chief.bas combat.bas command.bas cpmprt51.bas
craps.bas cube.bas deedyork.bas delers.bas
depthcharge.bas depthchg.bas diamond.bas eddie.bas
euphoria.bas evenwin1.bas evenwins.bas fakephre.bas
feesten.bas finance.bas godd.bas gomoko.bas
gunner.bas hammurabi.bas hamurabi.bas hello.bas
hi-lo.bas hilo.bas hurkle.bas ic-timer.bas
kalfeest.bas kinema.bas lander.bas lem.bas
letter.bas life.bas lifscore.bas litquiz.bas
loan2.bas log10k.bas lunar.bas maptest.bas
massa.bas mathdice.bas million.bas nicoma.bas
nicomachus.bas nim.bas number.bas orbit.bas
pirate.bas pizza.bas poetry.bas qubit.bas
queen.bas rc5.bas rocket.bas rockscissor.bas
rocksp.bas rusrou.bas satelite.bas sceptre1.bas
slalom.bas slots.bas snafufun.bas sort.bas
splat.bas stars.bas stock.bas stockmarket.bas
survival2.bas target.bas tem-ins.bas test1.bas
tictac1.bas tictactoe1.bas timer555.bas trap.bas
ttl-scrl.bas ucase.bas uitleg1.bas uitleg2.bas
unprotct.bas war.bas weekday.bas windchil.bas
xfertime.bas xformer.bas ykw1.bas ykw2.bas
> load hello.bas
Ok
> list
2 PRINT TAB(33); HELLO
4 PRINT TAB(15); CREATIVE COMPUTING MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY
6 PRINT: PRINT: PRINT
10 PRINT HELLO. MY NAME IS CREATIVE COMPUTER.
20 PRINT: PRINT: INPUT WHAT'S YOUR NAME ;N$: PRINT
30 PRINT HI THERE, ;N$; , ARE YOU ENJOYING YOURSELF HERE ;
40 INPUT B$: PRINT
50 IF B$= YES THEN 70
55 IF B$= NO THEN 80
...
> run
CREATIVE COMPUTING MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY

HELLO. MY NAME IS CREATIVE COMPUTER.

WHAT'S YOUR NAME?

6502 System Monitor
-------------------

To enter the system monitor, type:

@ call -151
1441102 96 14 STX $14,X
*

Monitor commands are:

d dump memory
l disassemble cpu opcodes
r return to last jsr point
g execute address

The memory dump will show the octal address on the left column, the hex
values for the memory at that address, and an ASCII translation of the
memory values:

*d
2364636 60 01 2C 26 6C D1 68 C7 45 40 1A F9 39 66 23 21 `.,&l.h.E@..9f
2364656 07 8D 39 0D 00 2C 1E F4 69 8D 64 07 19 10 00 35 ..9..,..i.d....5
2364676 09 A1 2C 6E 2B B5 29 2E 65 D4 4F 01 04 3E 04 73 ..,n+.).e.O..>.s
2364716 53 25 54 B9 14 E1 1D 9A 2B 19 60 13 51 20 52 E0 S%T.....+.`.Q R.
2364736 4B 52 1E 2A 03 66 33 4A 47 C1 10 99 35 5E 00 54 KR.*.f3JG...5^.T
2364756 32 26 4D 0A 03 34 70 D7 24 04 3C C8 40 21 09 CE 2&M..4p.$.<.@ ..
2364776 2C 02 78 31 1A 60 51 6B 39 0E 1A 20 5D 58 56 93 ,.x1.`Qk9.. ]XV.
2365016 61 45 C8 A5 BB AB 02 21 02 3A 01 08 AD A4 B2 01 aE..... .:......
2365036 94 2B 00 52 61 84 A5 21 02 45 00 9D E0 1F 32 BF .+.Ra.. .E....2.

To disassemble CPU instructions instead, use the l command:

*l
2366320 63 SUBD2
2366321 04 25 TSB $25
2366323 64 9C STZ $9C
2366325 2A ROL
2366326 31 04 AND ($04),Y
2366330 21 30 AND ($30,X)
2366332 31 09 AND ($09),Y
2366334 A3 MOVAB
2366335 44 PUSHAW

If an entry point in the system monitor is known, you can execute it with
the g command:

*2425152g

To return to the Telehack command shell from the system monitor,
use the r command.

Remote Terminal Monitoring
--------------------------

The link command will connect a remote user's tty to your tty. This will
let you assist the remote user by being able to view the remote output.

@ link <user or port>

In this case, the other user would see something like

.
%link from port 16 user forbin

And their session from that point would be mirrored on the linking
user's terminal.

There is also a separate facility within ptycon to allow simultaneous
monitoring of all connected ports.

Finger from Outside
-------------------

Telehack also responds to finger requests from the outside Internet on port 79:

$ finger @telehack.com
TELEHACK SYSTEM STATUS 04-May-11 23:27:08
4 users

port username status last what where
---- -------- ------ ---- ---- -----
0 operator System Operator 5m console
16 - 3m alice3 Lithuania
17 forbin Dr. Charles Forbin 13m Provo, UT
20 foo Yoda Soda 19m ptycon Oakland, CA

$ finger forbin@telehack.com
USER: forbin
system level: WIZARD
account age: 95 days
last login: today
system connects: 5
commands executed: 143

user status bits:
HACK10 Hacked 10 network hosts 30-Jan-11 23:19:57
HACK5 Hacked 5 network hosts 30-Jan-11 21:00:34
HACKER Hack the Planet 29-Jan-11 22:31:48
ACCT Registered User 29-Jan-11 22:23:17

Uploading and Downloading Files
-------------------------------

Telehack supports the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) on port 21. Connect using a
FTP client and log in with your Telehack username and password. Note that only
passive mode (PASV) is supported. Telehack's external FTP complies with RFC-959.

Telehack also supports the following protocols:

- Gopher on port 70 (See RFC-1436)
- Quote of the Day (QOTD) on port 17 (See RFC-865)

Usenet Archive
--------------

Type USENET to view the Usenet archive.

The archive was originally collected by Henry Spencer at the University of
Toronto beginning in 1981. Later it was rescued by David G. Wiseman from
the University of Western Ontario, who drove two hours in a pickup truck to
collect 141 magtapes and save them from destruction:

If I recall correctly, the issue of Henry Spencer's (actually,
the University of Toronto, Department of Zoology's) NetNews
archive was raised at a Usenix conference in the early 90's.
The question: can we get at them? Bruce Jones was especially
interested in this. Henry's answer was that it really wasn't
going to be easy because he had neither the disk space nor the
tape drive to pull them all down to make them available.

I, it turned out, did. So one bright winter day I drove from
London (Ontario Canada) to Toronto (Ontario Canada) -- a two
hour drive in my shiny new pickup truck and picked up 141
magtapes from the Zoology department at UofT and brought them
back to the Department of Computer Science at the University
of Western Ontario. (A not unimpressive bandwidth, by the way,
of some 18Mb/sec :-) never underestimate the bandwidth of a
pickup truck on the highway )

-- http://www.csd.uwo.ca/staff/magi/personal/usenet.html

Some additions have been made to the usenet archive available on
Telehack which have been provided from other sources.

Halt
----

Halting the CPU to enter the system monitor is not advised. However, if
you do this, the operator will usually supply a monitor entry point to
enable CPU restart and re-entry into the Telehack exec.

Shortcuts
---------

!! repeat last command
. repeat last command
w systat
w finger
l dir
ls dir
date daytime
cat type
cls clear
? command list

How to enable telnet in Windows 7, 10, and 11
---------------------------------------------

Windows 7, 10 and 11 ship with a telnet client, but it is shut off by default.
To enable it, do the following:

Start
Control Panel
Programs And Features
Turn Windows features on or off
Check Telnet Client
Hit OK

After that, you can open a command prompt and type

telnet telehack.com

See the PRIVACY command or privacy.txt, or visit the link below:
https://telehack.com/privacy.html

For some generally good advice, read the file becool.txt.