The best question the Help Desk had this week was from a faculty member who needed some help remembering how to telnet into a MUD. This made the Help Desk smile and think back to its younger days …
To “telnet” to something is just another way of having your local computer talk to a server somewhere out on the World Wide Web. Telnetting in to a server gives you a command-line interface where you need to type the actions you want carried out (instead of pointing and clicking on graphics). In GSLIS, you can use the similar (but more secure) SSH method to connect to the Linux-based Classroom servers. See http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/oitr/help/file-storage/ssh.html for instructions.
“MUD” stands for Multi-User Dungeon and is a text-based game environment. While some might argue the point, it could be said that environments like World of Warcraft and Second Life are the direct descendants of MUDs.
