Description
Facilities
Sources
Authors
Latest news:
GAEN M (18.2) final version is available!
Description
GAEN Talker Server is based on NUTS 3.3.3 original program and
it has many important and useful additions.
GAEN Talker Server consists mainly in:
GAEN Dimensions - multiple skies dimensions
GAEN Mirror - four faces of same talker
GAEN Natural Chat - ability to express natural language constructs
GAEN Gala - advanced security, management of users
GAEN Simple Language - powerful programming features: run commands files, test and cycle statements, user private variables
GAEN Events - event-driven talker, watch users facility
GAEN Shell - minimal set of shell commands (e.g. ls, cp, more, cd, chmod, grep, tail, who, stat, ps and other useful build-in UNIX shell commands)
GAEN Games - Hangman, Puzzle, Paintball and Fit
GAEN Distribution - free distribution of GAEN sources and additional files for UNIX (Linux)
GAEN Easy Compile - easy compiling script for multiple UNIX platforms (new faster and portable version!)
GAEN Flexible - enhanced flexible features for administrating, configurating and using the talker server
GAEN Community - regular live meetings of the users
For a more detailed technical description of GAEN Server, please read this paper: "GAEN - An Advanced Concurrent Teleconferencing System", presented at SACCS'98 Symposium on Automatic Control and Computer Science, Iasi, November 1998 (available in PDF format).
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Facilities
Original implemented concepts:
multiple dimensions
mirror chat
user "tones" and "stereo" "voices"
socials, macros and hints
GSL (version 4.2)
gsh (version 2.7)
events
hidden skies and message boards
blackhole
autosave user details facility
quotes (total of 700 quotes)
users' multiple environment files
watch users
secure passwords
restrictions
execute commands files
swear file control
management of users
greetings at pre/post-login time
fun: prayers, guessing, kill methods, DILI mirror
internal hosts file
commands aliases
games: Hangman - more than 7000 words in two (Romanian and English) dictionaries, Puzzle, Paintball and Fit
user notes
identification of users (real account and e-mail address)
transparency of superior users
command line arguments
superior level users notification system
Some additions to old NUTS commands/features are:
more information showed by .prompt, .system, .allclones, .who, .examine, .people, .status, .help, .site
optional parameters accepted by .quit, .wake, .entpro, .map, .kill, .logging, .clearline, .minlogin, .rmsn, .rmst, .topic, .examine
multiple and detailed logging files
more parameters in config file
get exact/real name of users
colours impact
more short-cuts
enhanced swearing control
global muzzle system
more help topics
new mail check and counting of mail messages facility
.charecho was replaced by .terminal, .swban by .swears and .ignall by .ignore (you can ignore certain users)
variable number of paged lines and auto-wrapping lines on dumb terminals
Other interesting and useful facilities:
pre-loaded default topics
much flexible .afk and new .listafks command
ASCII fun pictures
help commands available by level
substitution of true site/level
user/clone rename facility
boss .alert concept
.lock session facility
safety delete files
beep tell
list of users logins/logouts
list of all or some talker's users (output XML documents support)
hackers attack security
dynamic change of commands' level of access
auto-showing hints at help facility
pseudo-variables which replace some users' information at .desc, .examine or .who
different script files for checking GAEN configuration and easily compiling GAEN sources
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Sources
GAEN is freeware. You may modify the code to suit your needs, but you must NOT alter the credits.
GAEN Distribution is freely available in the following distribution: the GAEN M (18.2) version (August 1996 - May 2002). This version is available in .tar.gz format (unpack with gunzip and tar -xf commands at the UNIX shell prompt):
gaen_M_18_2.tar.gz talker files (sources, config, data, help, additional files) - about 350K
Compiling advices
To understand some things, you must have some familiarity with NUTS and you must read first the NUTS original documentation files (not included in this distribution). Then, read the documentation files included within GAEN Distribution package. To compile the sources, you may use easy.compile, a fast and portable shell (sh) script file written by Victor Tarhon-Onu.
If you prefer a direct method, type cc gaen.c -ogaend -O2 (for RedHat 5 or later, you must compile with -lcrypt optional parameter; for Sun Solaris, -lsocket -lnsl, also), then use go (or gaend) to boot up the server. We provide a simple Makefile, too.
Then, you must create an administration account: type gaen -b Name. After this, to connect to talker server, you may use telnet localhost 7000, type Name as a name and Name as a password. Enjoy!
Old versions
An older GAEN distribution is still available for download: GAEN M (18) version (August 1996 - December 2001):
gaen_M_18.tar.gz talker files (sources, config, data, help, additional files) - about 335Kb
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Authors
The main authors of this software are:
Neil Robertson: neil@ogham.demon.co.uk (UK) - the original author of NUTS talker server
Sabin-Corneliu Buraga: busaco@infoiasi.ro (Romania) - the actual author of GAEN Advanced Talker Server
Victor Tarhon-Onu: mituc@ac.tuiasi.ro (Romania) - the author of some portions of GAEN code and the main author of easy.compile script
Also, thanks for help and support to Stefan Ludovic Kocsis (aka Beavis), Sergiu Craciun (aka Billy), Bogdan Craciun (aka Ulen) and many other persons involved in this project over the years!
Many thanks to Victor Tarhon-Onu (aka Mituc)!
Please, send your suggestions or report bugs to busaco@infoiasi.ro.