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SDF COMmode Cheat Sheet by

com is a TOPS-20ish TALK (aka LINK) for UNIX. It basically links multiple TTYs together, though differently than in ITS or TOPS-20. It supports multiple public/private rooms, chat logging and automated cleanup. com runs on SDF.org

Lowercase Commands

Key
Action
Descri­ption
a
Answer a send
Replies to the most recent private message, if there's no message to reply to you'll see "% no one to answer­".
b
Boss mode
Changes the screen to what looks like a prompt so it looks like you're not up to anything nefarious. You can type anything you like but it does nothing AFAICT, enter puts you back in command mode with a cleared screen.
c
Clear
Clears the screen.
d
Dump out of com
Sends you an email with the full buffer of the room, excluding any direct messages.
e
Emote
Sends a message to the room in the third person.
f
Finger
Returns Finger data for a user.
g
Goto a room
Go to/join a commode room.
h
Help
Displays most of the commands for commode.
i
Ignore a user
Ignores a user by name, their messages won't appear when they send them but you will still seem them if you r/R a room history. Returns a list of ignored users if you have any then prompts for a user to ignore, enter a user's name to ignore them or enter the name of an ignored user to unignore them.
k
Kick a user
Kick a user from a room. This requires approval from another ARPA or higher level user. From the prompt enter "­use­r@h­ost­" to kick a user or "­app­rov­e" to approve a kick request, you can't approve a kick yourself even if you are on different hosts.
l
List rooms
Returns a list of rooms, the number of users, the date and time created and the room topic.
m
Mute user toggle
Mutes a user in a room. Requires approval from a second party, in the same way kicks are approved and in-line with kicks you can't approve your own mute requests, even if you're on multiple hosts.
n
Play Netris
Starts a game of Netris, enter "­use­r@h­ost­" to play against another player, "­pra­cti­ce" to play single player. This isn't made for com, it's just running Netris from inside com. More info on Netris itself can be found by entering man netris or netris -h from your shell. After a game it'll drop you back into com in command mode. It'll announce in the current room when you leave to play Netris and return from playing.
o
Toggle overstrike
Allows messages to be received while you're in talk or emote mode, the screen can get a bit messy when you're typing a message in this mode.
p
Peek into room
Prints the buffer of another room, like the r command it shows the 18 most recent lines by default but you can enter the number of lines if you want to see more or less.
q
Quit commode
Does what it says on the tin; quits. If EXITMODE is true in your .comrc you'll be prompted for a quit message. I'll cover the .comrc stuff later in this document.
r
Room history
Prints the most recent 18 lines from the buffer of the room you're in.
s
Send private
Sends a private message to a user. Asks for to which is "­use­r@d­oma­in", if you press enter eithout entering a user it'll give you a list of users in the room and exit. Enter a message and enter and it sends a private message to the user. If the user you're trying to message is in a different room you'll need to provide a room name and if the user isn't in that room it'll just return a list of the users that are and then exit back to command mode. If PRIVHIST is true in your .comrc you can see a log of private messages by entering "­his­tor­y" as the recipient after pressing s.
t
Set topic
Sets the room topic, topic can be cleared by entering an empty topic.
u
Lookup user URL
Displays user URL, I'm pretty sure this is grabbing the URL from a users profile in profiles but could be wrong.
w
Who is in the room
Prints a list of users in the room and the room's topogr­aphy.
x
Play Dopewars
Starts dopewars, when you quit it drops you back to command mode. I won't go into detail on how to play dopewars because I don't know! You can find more by entering man dopewars in your SDF shell. Like Netris, this will announce in the room when you leave to play the game and when you return.
z
Toggle color mode
Turns colors on or off! Simple.

.comrc Settings

Setting
Descri­ption
CLASSI­C=T­RUE­/FALSE
Original "­bli­nd" commode, disables echo and enables overstrike modes by default.
AFK=TR­UE/­FALSE
AFK enabled by default.
AFKBEE­P=T­RUE­/FALSE
Sets AFK mode for COMBEEP mode below.
BKSP=T­RUE­/FALSE
Sets default backspace char.
COMBEE­P=T­RUE­/FALSE
Enable­s/d­isables "­bee­p" feature for all output.
ROOMNA­ME=­string
Join a room when starting com (default is lobby).
EMPTYR­OOM­=TR­UE/­FALSE
Includes empty rooms when you use l to list rooms.
QUIETM­ODE­=TR­UE/­FALSE
No version or room list when starting commode.
BIFFMO­DE=­TRU­E/FALSE
Enable­/di­sable biffster mode by default. What is biffster mode?
EXITMO­DE=­TRU­E/FALSE
When this is enabled you'll be prompted for a message when leaving a room or quitting com.
LAMEMO­DE=­TRU­E/FALSE
Enables or disables lame mode by default but I don't know what lame mode is, the manpage describes it as "­Figlet mode". I've tried joining com with this enabled and it seemed to do nothing.
PRIVHI­ST=­TRU­E/FALSE
Enable logging of private messages, you can view them by viewed by sending a private message to history (ie."s histor­y") as mentioned in the commands above.
TYPING­=TR­UE/­FALSE
IM style "is now typing­" messages display whenever you enter a message command, they appear in the chat just like any other emote message.
NETRIS­TAU­NT=­string
A taunt to display after a Netris match, up to 60 charac­ters.
The .comrc config file can be manually created and configured by a user to set modes and a default room to join on launch, but it isn't required. The syntax is a straig­htf­orward VARIAB­LE=­VALUE.
  

Uppercase Commands

Key
Action
Descri­ption
A
Toggle AFK
Marks you as AFK or returns from AFK, AFK users show as "­afk­" when checking user idle query. Sending a message to a room also returns you from AFK.
B
Hunt the Barnacle
Lets you hunt another user or a bot, I need to spend more time with this. "hunt <us­er@­hos­t>" at the prompt to hunt another user in the Caves of Dankness, "­pla­y" to play a single user game, "­sco­res­" to view high score list (scores apparently does nothing, at least when launched from com?). Like Netris this is just launching a game from com, it's not in com itself, although this one was made by smj! Like the other games it anounces in the room when you leave to play and when you return. Prints scores when you win, lose or quit then dumps you back to com in command mode.
C
Play comchess
Literally play chess against another user using standard algebraic notation, I didn't have time to explore it much but it looks like it's still a work in progress with a number of commands not yet implem­ented.
D
Dump into com
Lets you dump multi-line text into a commode room. Enter your text and press CTRL-D to end input and dump into the room. Users will see that you've dumped into the room but won't see what you've dumped unless they view the buffer with r/R or p.
E
Toggle echo
When echo mode is enabled and you enter talk mode you see your name and the message echoed locally as you type it, with echo disabled you won't see anything when you enter talk mode until you hit enter to send your message. Looks like it only effects talk mode, emote mode still appears even with echo disabled.
F
Flush commode
Flushes the buffer of a commode room, requires approval from another ARPA or higher level user to do so. From the prompt "­flu­sh" to request a flush or "­app­rov­e" to approve a requested flush. You can't approve your own flush, even if you're logged in on multiple domains.
G
Character Stats
Prints or generates RPG stats.
H
Play Hunt
Starts a game of Hunt, a multi-­player multi-­ter­minal game. Once you quit it dumps you back into com in command mode. "man hunt" from your terminal should give you more info on the game itself.
I
User idle query
Returns a list of all commode users, sorted by idle time, showing the room they're in, what host they're on, their idle time and their AFK status.
L
Post a link
Post a link to the room and to SDF's URL Russian Roulette. "­Lin­k" is the URL to link, including http:// or whatever, "­tit­le" is a name/d­esc­ription for the link. Will need to dive deeper into the URL Roulette sometime I think, I don't know too much about it.
M
Play Mazewar
Presumably plays a maze game, when I try and use it from com I get a maze on screen and the error: "­MAZ­E_D­AEM­ON_PIPE cannot be opened­". That could be my issue though and I haven't tried it from the shell. Even though it crashes it still announces when you leave to play and when you return.
N
Netris statistics
Retrieve statistics on Netris games. "­rec­ord­" returns the current record match, "­sco­res­" returns the top 20 user scores for the quarter, "­scores all" returns all scores for the quarter, "­scores qtr-ye­ar" returns the scores for a specific quarter and entering "­stats <us­er@­hos­t>" will return a specific user's statis­tics.
O
  
Appears to do nothing but doesn't enter talk mode like the other unused keys do?
P
Set room password
Locks the room with a password. Entering a blank password will clear it.
Q
Call a quorum
This has been disabled or was never implem­ented, it's a mystery what it used to do. I guess it was part of some community voting processes.
R
Extended history
Prints the x most recent lines from the buffer of the room you're in.
S
Summon a user
Summons a user to a room, if the user isn't on com to be summoned it sends an email informing them their presence is requested.
T
Set room topography
Add a multi-line descri­ption of a room, CTRL-D to end, topography can be up to 10 lines, I'm not sure how to remove a room's topogr­aphy.
U
Lookup user info
Shows a user's created, validated, ARPA and MetaARPA dates.
W
Who is in a room
Shows you a list of who's in another room
X
Show your status
Shows your current status­/se­ttings: your name, host and the room you're in, as well as AFK mode, biff mode, backspace setting, classic setting, echo mode, joined time, lame mode, overstrike mode, quiet mode, ROTM mode and timezone. I'm not sure what ROTM mode is, likewise lame mode and biff mode but they'll come up again later.
Y
Yank into room
"Nah, you don't really feel like it."
Z
Zap out of room
"Nah, you don't really feel like it."

Punctu­ation Commands

Key
Action
Descri­ption
-
Toggle backspace
Toggles backspace between ^H and ^?, ^? is the default I think.
<
Surf rooms backward
Goto the previous room in the list
>
Surf rooms forward
Goto the previous room in the list
!
Lame mode
Toggles biffster on and off. Intere­stingly in the docs for .comrc biffster mode and lame mode are different things, lame mode is described as "­figlet mode", also showing your status has a seperate line for lame mode.
=
Show playlist
No idea what this is suppoesd to do and doesn't give you any feedback on what it should be doing.
spc
Begin talk mode
Lets you type a message to the room.
:
  
Returns "Type '?' for comman­ds"
/
  
Returns same help output as h
?
  
Returns same help output as h
 

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  • Published: 13th August, 2022

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