party - set OS responses mode

party ON|OFF|WHEREIS [ - ] dnv

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.'

-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.

%-) party on

What 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?

/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.

crp(1), stuffio(2), doobrie(9), gouge(3), ftang(65534), wi(-1), edmond(29), jumpstart(2), vo_mit(992)

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