Talk (Unix)

talk was a program originally used for live text communication between different users of a single multi-user computer running the Unix operating system. talk eventually accommodated digital conversations between users on different machines as well. Follow-ons to talk included ntalk and ytalk. ytalk was the first to allow conversations between more than two users. All of these programs split the interface into different sections for each participant. The interfaces did not convey the order in which statements typed by different participants would be reassembled into a log of the conversation. Also, all three programs transmitted each character as it was typed, lending a more immediate feel to the discussion than recent instant messaging clients or IRC. Users more familiar with other forms of instant text communication would sometimes find themselves in embarrassing situations by typing something and deciding to withdraw the statement, unaware that the other user(s) had seen it all happen in real time.
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