MUD Shell

TGandalf writes "MUD Shell is a shell for end users- as easy to use as a MUD or a text adventure game. View an example session and download the source (16KB). It translates your filing system into a map, so cd.. becomes gonorth or simply n. File copying via the shell involves moving to one location, taking objects, then moving to another location to drop them. We got the idea from reading a thread on SlashDot." Allright I can't imagine actually using this, but I gotta give props. Very clever.

Adventure Shell... old hat?

Isn't this just like the Adventure Shell, which has been around for a long time? Seems pretty MSInnovative to me.

Not Good for the IT Community

Reminds me of an older MUD I used to play, called "OverLord". I can foresee sysadmins lording over their 'domains', and 'killing' any user foolish enough to trespass into their realm.

User: I need to access this directory share on the network.

sysadmin: You must first defeat my evil minions! Muhahaha!!!!

Visual metaphors

Gives a new meaning to drag'n drop...or perhaps, dragon drop.

Virus

When the computer is infected by a virus does that mean I got bit by chiggers and have to go find the mud?

Life is an Adventure.

Re:First Person Shooter

Already been done, to some extent: Doom source hacked such that processes were represented by baddied (the more resource hungry the process, the worse the monster was), and you kill -9'ed them with your boomstick, as already reported by Slashdot [slashdot.org] in late 99.

Sample session

> enter /etc

>look
[listing deleted for brevity]

>look at smb.conf
smb.conf looks interesting. You might be able to write to it and delete it. You definitely cannot execute it

> wield SwordOfDeletion

> attack smb.conf
You hit smb.conf hard.
smb.conf savages you with a death spell.
You feel weak.
You run away to /

> say "shit, forgot to su"

It might go like this

> enter /etc

>look
[listing deleted for brevity]

>look at smb.conf
smb.conf looks interesting. You might be able to write to it. You definitely cannot execute it.

> wield SwordOfDeletion

> attack smb.conf
You hit smb.conf hard.
smb.conf savages you with a death spell.
You feel weak. You are near death.
You run away to /

> say "shit!"
You say "shit".
/boot looks are you strangely.

> cast SuperUser

> password: *******

> drink healing potion

> enter /etc

> attack smb.conf
You kill smb.conf with a single blow.

> Say "Thats more like it"
You say "Thats more like it"

/init.d applauds loudly.

Re:Whammo

Here it is. http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.cs.unm.ed u/~dlchao/flake/doom/+doom+shell&hl=en

not everything should be turned into a mud

For example, the Super Nintendo classic, Metroid [penny-arcade.com].

Finally...

Back in the 80s, I'd use DOS and play Infocom games constantly. Whenever I lost my train of thought, I'd do either L or DIR absentmindedly, just to get me restarted.

Of course, half the time, I'd get I don't know the word 'dir.' and the other half I'd get Bad command or filename: L.

Got so bad I made an L.BAT which did a DIR, which helped a little. :)

Re:I can see it now...

Or the Microsoft version:

You find yourself surrounded by a mysterious blue cloud. You are unable to move.

Re:This reminds me of Disclosure

I saw the movie a while back, and read the book not to long ago.

The thing I thought most stupid about both is how inefficient it would be to browse a database in this VR system! I mean, you have to actually walk over to a cabinet, open it, find the file, then open it and read it? Not the database you want? So now you walk down the corridor to a branch to find the portal to the next DB?

I am a strong advocate of VR - don't get me wrong. But database searching and retrieval doesn't seem to be an ideal app for virtual environments (one thing I found funny about the book - I can't remember it in the movie - was when they were looking at the 3D factory "spec" - what I couldn't understand is why the factory spec couldn't simply be "rendered" around them, instead of as a smaller model, allowing them to see many different details).

Virtual chatrooms - yes. Collaboration - yes. Surgery - yes. Training - yes. Architecture - yes. Trending/Statistics/Number modeling - yes.

All of these could benifit from a DB backend - but searching that DB shouldn't be a human process in the virtual world (ie, why couldn't they just ask the avatar - "angel" in the book - to find what they are looking for?)...

Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!

Re:One GUI from the "Movie OS"...

You do know that the filesystem navigation in Jurassic Park was a real application, right? No special effect. It was a program called fsn (the FileSystem Navigator), which ran on SGIs at the time. In fact, I'm amazed to find (after 5 seconds at google) that you can still download it from SGI! [sgi.com]

FSN is not fake, it actually looks just like what you saw in the movie. I think the Jurassic Park people added the sound effects, but the real FSN actually let you fly around a graphical representation of your filesystem, fly into subdirs by clicking on them, launch apps, etc.

Non-GUI interfaces

I think that efforts like this could help the indoctrinated user become more comfortable with a command line interface. It gives a very easily visualized representation of the file system which is actually more logical than the folder analogy commonly used. Once the user realizes that the folders they are used to using are simply an abstraction, they are ready to start learning a full-fledged command line interface, at least for file management. Of course there will always be a use for the GUI, but as anyone who has worked tech support can tell you, the GUI lets people be stupid, and then they don't know how to solve even the most rudimentary problems, because they don't understand that it is only an abstraction. If stuff like this makes the users a bit more aware of HOW the computer works, I'm all for it. Then we can get to work on juicier stuff, like not leaving the Administrator password blank.

Is this the start?

Wonderful! Cool! Amazing! I think, anyway :)

So, the next thing we'll have is a tinyfugue plug in so it'll draw maps for you, then a graphical front end so you're wandering around filesystems as if they were buildings and rooms in a VR environment, killing off rogue processes with your trusty sword of SIGTERM.

"Hey! You can't kill me, I'm nice -20!"

Or... we just get the interactive, multi-player plug in for SGI's VR filesystem viewer :)

Re:Geeks and filesystems.

Geeks seem to have an obsession with masturbating filesystems, memory lapse, hard"drive" palpitations and so forth as everyday blow jobs. For example, I recently saw someone fucking their filesystem as though it was a loose whore, which was extremely odd to view, as I am a loose whore.

Why do geeks do this? I would hazard that it is because they are so incredibally obsessed with the innards of their penises, that they desire to merge my vagina with it, to create a symbiosis of the external tangible world and the internal world of "software".

One can see this motivation in Virtual Porn and oral sex, artificial life and inflatable dolls. A fascination with nonreal copulations can enegender loneliness. What better way to escape this loneliness by fucking everything and everyone! Especially me, since I'm such a huge whore!

Through this sexual experience, geeks can become better adapted to the whores.

I can see it now...

"You might get eaten by a core ^h^h^h^h grue."

Heh.