A Firesign Chat

Help & Instructions

  • HTML is allowed in messages (but not chat names); please be careful.

  • Names in red are members of the Firesign Theatre or chat moderators.

  • Text in messages starting with "http" or "www" are automatically made into clickable links.

  • You can <b>boldface</b>, <u>underline</u>, or <i>italicize</i> text as shown.

  • color <red>names<> or <0000ff>numbers<> are as shown.

  • You can 'emote' instead of talk if the text starts with a colon (e.g. ":waves" produces the output "person waves")

  • You can show you are temporarily away from the chat by pulling down the "Send to all" menu and selecting "I'm away". Your name will be in () to show you're away. To show you're back, just type something.

  • <time>s and <date>s are for New York.
Please log out when you're done; the Reaper will eventually kill all zombies, but people can end up talking to you when you aren't there. If you get cut off, you can log in "over" yourself if you are reconnecting from the same IP address.

You can add your email address to the notification list and get a message for each person who enters the The Waiting Room until your notification time runs out. To remove your name sooner, select "Remove" and re-enter your email address.

Hint: once you log in, you can bookmark the URL and it will be an auto-login, including your name and set parameters.

SCREEN SETTINGS
To adjust your screen settings, either use the pulldown menus on the login screen before entering, or pull down the "Send to all" menu and select Configure (it can take a few seconds to appear, because it gets refreshed just like the text; you can refresh your browser to force an immediate update). You should make the number of lines and font size small enough to fit on your screen without scrolling, with some leeway for long lines that wrap. TEXT is the number of lines of text on the screen, FONT is the font size, REDRAW is how many seconds between screen refreshes, BAR is the height of the gray private message bar, SEND is the height of the bottom bar that sends text, and LINE is the the number of lines of input (multiple lines allow cut & paste, but you have to press the 'send' button; you can also change the width, e.g. 3x80). You can immediately switch between 1 line of input and 3 lines of input by selecting the "multiline input" or "1-line input" in the pulldown menu. If you need to "look back", don't adjust your parameters, just read the current logfile using the Log link by the Exit button. You can see where people are (probably) from by pressing the 'Nino' link.

A Refresh time of "Manual" (from the front page) will only refresh the page when done manually, and only new lines of text are printed.

PRIVATE MESSAGES
To send a private message to someone, select their name instead of "Send to all". The private message bar will show the last two messages sent; to see earlier private messages, click the "Msgs" link. You don't have to be in the same room to send private messages.

PUBLIC & PRIVATE CHAT ROOMS
You can create new chat rooms by selecting "New room" from the "Go to room " submenu. Enter the name of the room (letters, digits, hyphens, and spaces only) and one will be created, or select one from the list of currently occupied rooms. Others can join you by going to that same room. Your room will be added to the list unless the 'unlisted' box is checked. Your chat room will "exist" (i.e. the logfile will persist) as long as someone uses it at least once a week.
People in the same room as you have their names in boldface at the top of the screen; people in unlisted rooms are denoted by *asterisks. People with red names chatting in "The Auditorium", or anyone chatting in "Public Address System" can be heard in all occupied rooms that aren't unlisted ("The Aviary", even though it's listed, is treated as an unlisted room). The main room everyone enters is "The Waiting Room". Only "The Waiting Room" is logged; all permanent rooms are cleaned each night.

FILTERING CHATTER
"Hear red" and "Hear all" are intended to help filter chatter when there are a large number of chatters trying to talk to a member of the Firesign Theatre (their names are in red). Selecting "Hear red" will only show messages from people with red names (Firesign Theatre members or chat moderators); it won't show you what other people in the room are saying, or alert you to people entering and leaving. You can still send private messages to other chatters, or look at the log (which shows everything), but your normal chat window will only show what people with red names are saying. Typically, the moderators will "hear" everything in order to filter questions to the Firesign Theatre, who can only hear people with red names. This allows the moderators to sort through and feed questions from the audience to the main speaker in an orderly manner.

Catherwood will do a few things for you, if you say something like "Catherwood, bring me a drink" or "Catherwood, call me a cab", or just beckon him by calling his name.


Logs for the last week: Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
Past Thursday night Firesign Chats are here, and the older IRC chats are on google group archives.