How do I use the talk program to communicate with another user?

First you must know the username of the person you want to talk to and the machine that he or she is logged in on. Of course, that user must be logged in at the same time you are logged in. If you know the user name and the machine name, then use the command: 
     talk username@machine
For example: 
     talk patsmith@curly.cc.utexas.edu
If you have problems using the talk program, they probably involve your terminal emulation or the fact that there are several versions of the talk program.

Problems with terminal emulation, such as scrolling problems, can be resolved by correctly setting the TERM environment variable (for example, setenv TERM vt100).

When someone tries to use talk to communicate with you, you will receive a notification like this: 

     Message from Talk_Daemon@somemachine.cc.utexas.edu at 15:07 ...  
     talk: connection requested by user@somewhere.somedomain.      
     talk: respond with:  user@somewhere.somedomain.
To block these requests, type the command: 
     mesg n
If you run talk and get the message: 
     [No connection yet]
or   checking for invitation on caller's machine
and then the program exits, the talk program is trying to figure out if it can bother the person on the other end. If the person has messages turned off (by typing mesg n) or if there is not a compatible talk daemon running on the other end, then your "hail" will not be seen. If you don't get past this message, then the only thing you can do is use e-mail.

For more information about the talk program, type: 

     man talk
Unix: Introduction to Unix Answers
UT 26 August 2000
Copyright by Academic Computing and Instructional Technology Services
ACITS on the Computing Web at The University of Texas at Austin
Comments to help@cc.utexas.edu