Mike's WWW Guide to FIBS Commands

Commands

FIBS has an extensive on-line help system, which is accessed by typing help followed by the command name. So the first command described is help. If you are new to FIBS, look at the help for beginners.

No commands have changed recently (a sign of a stable system).

If you loaded this page from the main Help Page, you should use the navigation features of your browser (such as the Back and Forward buttons in Netscape or Mosaic), unless you like like waiting on the information dirt-track :-)

If you do (or your browser is broken), you can go back to the main Help Page.

> help

NAME: help - help on different topic
SYNOPSIS: help
help topic
DESCRIPTION: help topic displays the help available on topic. Help is currently available on the following topics:

  about
  accept      address     autologin   average     away
  back        beaver      beginner    board
  boardstyle  bye         client      cls         commands
  complaints  countries   crawford    date        dicetest
  double      erase       formula     gag         help
  hostnames   invite      join        kibitz      last
  leave       look        man         message     motd
  move        names       off         oldboard    oldmoves
  otter       panic       password    pip         raccoon
  ratings     rawboard    rawwho      redouble    reject
  resign      roll        rules       save        say
  set         shout       show        shutdown    sortwho
  stat        tell        time        timezones   tinyfugue
  toggle      unwatch     version     watch       wave
  where       whisper     who         whois       !!

> help about

NAME: about - Display information about the server
SYNOPSIS: about
DESCRIPTION: The about command displays some general information about the First Internet Backgammon Server (FIBS).

> help accept

NAME: accept - accepting doubles and resigns
SYNOPSIS: accept
DESCRIPTION: You can use accept if your opponent has doubled and you think it's ok to accept. Use reject if you don't. You can also use accept if your opponent wants to resign and you accept to win the number of points displayed.
SEE ALSO: double, reject, resign

> help address

NAME: address - make your email address known to others
SYNOPSIS: address email_address
DESCRIPTION: You can use the address command to make your email address known to other players. They can use the whois command to get this information about you. At the moment FIBS cannot check that this is really your valid email address. You should however make sure that the address you tell others is indeed valid. Abuse of this feature can be a reason to delete your account on FIBS.
EXAMPLE: address marvin@mdstud.chalmers.se
SEE ALSO: names, whois

> help autologin

NAME

autologin - how the TinyMUD style autologin feature works

DESCRIPTION

The usual way to login is to enter your user name after the login: prompt and your password after the password: prompt. There is an alternative way of logging in that is used by TinyMUD clients and that is understood by the server. At login: prompt you can send connect your_name your_password to the server. If name and password are ok you will be logged in without seeing the password: prompt. Note that your password will appear as plain text on the screen if you use this login method with telnet.

If you connect with this autologin feature the server assumes that you are using a client with a separate input window (like TinyFugue) and will not send those > prompts you see when using telnet. This makes the output look better (at least from my point of view). Autologin should not be used when connecting by means of a telnet client.

> help average

NAME: average - show average number of users
SYNOPSIS: average
DESCRIPTION: The average commands shows the average number of users, by time of day. For each hour the output shows how many users were on average logged in during that period since the last restart of the program. If there is no information available for that period (because FIBS was last restarted less than 23 hours ago) the number of users will be shown as 0.00 .
All times are in UTC (GMT).

> help away

NAME: away - Leaving a message for other users before leaving the terminal
SYNOPSIS: away
away message
DESCRIPTION: If you type away message everyone who tells you something or invites you is told that you are away. The message you give is shown after that. All messages sent to you will be displayed on your screen while you're away. Nothing will be lost. You can use the server as usual. It's just that others get the message when they talk to you or invite you. Type back if you are back again. To remind you that you are away the prompt is changed from > to
You're away. Please type 'back' >. This command should be useful when your boss calls you or if going to the restroom is more important than playing backgammon. You can type just away to see the messages left by all users who are away.
SEE ALSO: back

> help back

NAME: back - Back again after the away command was used
SYNOPSIS: back
DESCRIPTION: Type back if you have have already typed away and want to be marked back.
SEE ALSO: away

> help beaver

NAME: beaver - Offering an instant redouble that is a beaver
SYNOPSIS: beaver
DESCRIPTION: An instant redouble of an offered double is called beaver. You can use the command redouble instead. beaver can only used for the first instant redouble while redouble can be used for any of several instant redoubles in a row.
SEE ALSO: otter, raccoon, redouble

> help beginner

NAME

beginner - very short introduction to the server

DESCRIPTION

Short help: If you want to play, enter the following commands:

toggle ready (means that you are not refusing to play)
who (tells you who is logged on)
invite player n (tells player you want to play a n point match)

If you get invited:
join player (and the game can begin)

bye closes the connection to the backgammon server.

help topic gives you more help on topic

SEE ALSO

help on other topics, especially
move explains the intracacies of moving,
type help rules if you don't know the rules of the game

>help blind

NAME: blind - ban another user from watching you
SYNOPSIS: blind name
DESCRIPTION: If you blind another user, that user will not be able to watch the games you are playing or look at your board with the look command. There is no unblind command, just use blind name again for that purpose. Bans remain active until you lift them or until you log out. There is no way to save bans as permanent settings.
SEE ALSO: look, watch

>help board

NAME: board - Displays the board again
SYNOPSIS: board
DESCRIPTION: The board command displays the board. As the board is displayed after every move if the autoboard toggle is set to YES (which is the default) you should only need to use this command if the board has scrolled from your screen. You can only use this command if you're playing or while you are watching another user playing.
You can use 'b' as an abbreviation of 'board'.
SEE ALSO: rawboard, toggle-autoboard, toggle-rawboard

> help boardstyle

NAME

boardstyle - the various boardstyles

DESCRIPTION

The backgammon server currently knows 3 different ways of displaying the backgammon board. You can choose one of the 3 styles by setting the variable 'boardstyle' with the 'set' command to one of the numbers 1 to 3. The three styles are:

1,2: are nearly identical. Style 2 needs 2 lines more than style 1 to display the board.

3: doesn't display a human readable board (for most humans :-), but a couple of numbers representing the board. The help on 'rawboard' explains the meaning of the numbers. The previously used toggle 'rawboard' is no longer available.

SEE ALSO

board, rawboard, set

> help bye

NAME: bye - leave the First International backgammon Server
SYNOPSIS: bye
adios
ciao
end
exit
logout
quit
tschoe
DESCRIPTION: The bye command closes the connection to the backgammon server. If you are playing a game, the game is saved before you leave, but it's not very polite to do this without informing your opponent first. You can use any of the words given above to leave the server.

Carry on reading, or go back to the Command List...

> help client

NAME

client - one way to use a client

DESCRIPTION

You can log in to FIBS with TinyMUD clients. I have tested this with a client called TinyFugue. Other (Tiny)MUD clients should work too. TinyFugue is a text client for UNIX platforms that is more comfortable than telnet. It offers a separate input window with line editing, user definable macros, autologin, a pager and more. You can get the client by ftp from ferkel.ucsb.edu . The file to get is pub/mud/Clients/tf.2.1.beta2.tar.Z.
At the same place you can get other MUD clients for several platforms and the MUD FAQ telling you more about what clients are available and where to get them. I will not be able to answer questions about how to compile or setup those clients. You'll have to try yourself. You can get some help on setting up the TinyFugue client by typing help tinyfugue. This reference to TinyMUD style clients does not mean I'll support all aspects of those clients or add features to them. It is meant as a hint what can be used as a client. Maybe someone else adds features to them or starts working on an own client after looking at the source. If you plan to do this let me know and maybe I'll be able to coordinate the efforts made. (btw: the server knows how to handle TinyMUD style autologins)

Other graphical interfaces are also available.

SEE ALSO

autologin, tinyfugue

> help cls

NAME: cls - Clear the screen on a vt100 terminal
SYNOPSIS: cls
clear
DESCRIPTION: cls or clear clears the screen. Note that this command currently works only if you are working on a vt100 or a similar terminal!!

> help commands

NAME: commands - how commands are entered
SYNOPSIS: To enter a command it's sufficient to type a prefix of the command that identifies it. There are some commands that are recognized with one or two letters although there are other commands starting with the same prefix. The commands that are are handled with this special treatment are:
b = board, k = kibitz, m = move, r = roll, s = say, t = tell, w = who, wh = whisper.
EXAMPLES: r -> roll (special treatment, see above)
re -> unknown command re (conflict between 'resign' and 'reject')
res -> resign (no other command with that prefix)

> help complaints

NAME: complaints - how to complain about cheaters
DESCRIPTION: If you want to complain about another player because of cheating or because of something else, please try to discuss the issue with other people on FIBS before sending email to marvin@mdstud.chalmers.se This address should mainly be used for bug reports or personal mail to me. Because of the amount of email I receive, I will not always be able to answer all of them (although I do read all of them)
SUMMARY: bug-reports to marvin@mdstud.chalmers.se
flames and insults to nobody@nowhere.org
complaints should be discussed on FIBS before sending email.
SEE ALSO: erase

> help countries

NAME

countries - where do the players live

DESCRIPTION

There are players from the following countries (and maybe more): Let marvin know if you miss your country. I'll then check the IP address you last came from.

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, UK, USA, Venezuela

> help crawford

NAME

crawford - The Crawford rule

DESCRIPTION

This server uses the Crawford rule by default. Here is what is says:

If you are playing a n-point match and your opponent is ahead of you and he gets to n-1 points you are not allowed to use the doubling cube in the next game to come.

You can set the crawford toggle to NO if you don't want to use the Crawford rule. If your opponent did the same the rule won't be used.

EXAMPLE: 5 point match score game # You opponent 1 0 3 2 0 4 3 1 4 (you were not allowed to double in this game) 4 3 4 (you were allowed to double again) ... ... ... Note: After 2 games, your opponent only needed 1 point to win, so the third game is the Crawford game. Having survived that game, you are free to double again.

> help date

NAME: date - equivalent to the time command
SYNOPSIS: The date and time commands are equivalent.
SEE ALSO: time

> help dicetest

NAME: dicetest - show statistics about the dice
SYNOPSIS: dicetest
DESCRIPTION: The dicetest command shows the results of several test that are performed on all the rolls of all players after a restart of FIBS. First it tells you how many rolls went into the results you'll see afterwards. The next 6 lines show you how often each pair of numbers appeared in those rolls. The next lines show a geometrical test: Look at the book Numerical Recipes. Example Book (C) for a similar test. The next lines show how often it happened that a certain number appeared several times in a row. Each roll with two dice is treated as two rolls with a single die and the length of sequences of exactly n rolls are counted for each number. E.g. the number below 'n: 1' tells you how often there was exactly a single 1 (no 1 rolled before or after that). In each line 'S:' means 'sum:'. The last line tells you the theoretical values of the line above, so you can compare the theory to the number of n-runs rolled in real life FIBS.

> help double

NAME: double
SYNOPSIS: double
DESCRIPTION: Type double if you want to double the cube. Your opponent will then be asked if she or he wants to accept or reject the double. This program uses the Crawford rule by default.
SEE ALSO: accept, crawford, reject, toggle-crawford

> help erase

NAME: erase - How and why accounts are erased
DESCRIPTION: I'm very sorry that this is necessary, but I can't wait any longer: There have been problems with users of the backgammon server complaining about other players. Complaints were about cheating and about insulting other users. It's not possible for me to verify if those incidents did really happen, because I'm not logged in all the time, because people tend to behave well as soon as I'm logged in and because listening to all players involved (which I tried) uses up a lot of the time I can use for maintaining and improving the server. Therefore I have asked a couple of players to report those incidents. Those players are users of this server for several months and I know that I can rely on what they tell me. If those players keep telling me that someone is misusing the server I will erase the account in question without discussing about it. I know this may not always be the ideal way to solve the problems, but I don't see any other way to deal with them.
REMARKS: Don't complain if it happens to you - it's not my decision. No, I won't tell who the players are whom I asked to keep their eyes open. I won't answer the insulting emails I'll get. I won't listen to complaints about other players by other players than the ones I asked to complain.

So far so good.. now read some more, or go back to the Command List...

> help formula

NAME

formula - The formulas used to calculate rating changes

DESCRIPTION

These are the formulas used to determine the ratings of a player: Let's say that two players P1 and P2 were playing a n-point match. The ratings of the players are r1 for P1 and r2 for P2 .

Let D = abs(r1-r2) (rating difference)
Let P_upset = 1/(10^(D*sqrt(n)/2000)+1) (probability that underdog wins)
Let P=1-P_upset if the underdog wins and P=P_upset if the favorite wins.

For the winner:: Let K = max ( 1 , -experience/100 + 5 ) The rating change is: 4*K*sqrt(n)*P
For the loser:: Let K = max ( 1 , -experience/100 + 5 ) The rating change is: -4*K*sqrt(n)*P

The 'experience' of a player is the sum of the lengths of all matches a player has finished. Every player starts with a rating of 1500 and an experience of 0.

SEE ALSO

ratings

> help gag

NAME: gag - ignore what another user says
SYNOPSIS: gag name
DESCRIPTION: If you gag another user you will not hear what he or she says with the tell, shout, kibitz or whisper commands. You can't ignore what your opponent tells you with the say command or what the players in game you watch kibitz or whisper (If you don't want to listen to them, why do you play with them or watch them in the first place?). You can't talk to people that you have gagged. There is no ungag command, just use gag name again for that purpose.
SEE ALSO: kibitz, say, shout, tell, watch, whisper

> help hostnames

NAME

hostnames - how to interpret hostnames given by the who command

DESCRIPTION

Whenever a connection between your computer and the server is established, all the server knows is the so-called 'IP address' of your computer (e.g. 134.130.130.46). If your local network is set up correctly the server is able to translate this information into a more readable address (e.g. ouzo.rog.rwth-aachen.de). There are two things that can go wrong:

The server knows which computer is responsible for this address but this machine says the address is invalid. In this case the server gives you the name of the responsible machine by displaying 'near: name.of.responsible.computer' as your address. Please ask your local network guru to add your machine to the name server database. (You can find out your IP address with the 'where' command)
The server can't find a computer responsible for your IP address. In this case it displays 'Illegal IP' in front of your address. Probably there is something wrong in the way your computer was installed. Please ask your local system administrator to check if your computer uses the correct IP address. It is possible that the server won't accept connections from those machines in the future.

SEE ALSO

who, where

> help invite

NAME

invite - invite another user to play a game of backgammon

SYNOPSIS

invite name number
invite name unlimited
invite name

DESCRIPTION

The invite command is used to ask other players if they want to play with you. You can only use this command if you are ready to play (see toggle ready), the other player is ready to play and is not already playing with someone else. See help on who to find out whom you can invite. There are three ways to invite other players (see above)

you want to start a number point match with name
you want to start a match of unlimited length with name
you want to resume a saved match with name

The first two of the above discard a saved game if name accepts the invitation, but name is told that there is a saved match. Invitations for matches longer than 9 points are limited to players whose experience is high enough to appear in the rating list. This was necessary because some new players cheated themselves into the rating list.

SEE ALSO

join, toggle, who

> help join

NAME

join - accept an invitation from another player

SYNOPSIS

join
join name

DESCRIPTION

You can type join name if you get a message that name wants to play with you. If you don't want to play just do nothing. After joining the player who invited you the game starts immediately.
See help on

leave if you don't know how to stop a game.
join without arguments is used to start a new game within a match.

If one of the players is watching the server will automatically do an unwatch command for this player.

SEE ALSO

invite, leave, watch, unwatch

> help kibitz

NAME: kibitz - talking to players and watchers
SYNOPSIS: kibitz message
DESCRIPTION: The kibitz command is similar to the say command. If you are playing or watching a game use kibitz message to say message to everyone who is playing or watching the game. You can use the single letter k as an abbreviation of kibitz.
If you only want to talk to the watchers of the game (because you don't want to disturb the players) use the whisper command.
SEE ALSO: say, shout, tell, whisper

> help last

NAME: last - Display information about login times
SYNOPSIS: last
last name
DESCRIPTION: The last command can be used to display the last logins and logouts. The last 20 entries of the login/logout list will be displayed. There is an optional argument to this command: Type last name to find out the time of name's last login. Note that this command does not use name completion, so name has to match the exact name of a user.
SEE ALSO: names

> help leave

NAME: leave - leave and save a game
SYNOPSIS: leave
DESCRIPTION: You can type leave if you are playing with someone and want to quit the game. The game is saved and will be reloaded when one of the players types invite name and the other player joins. It's not very polite to leave a game without telling your opponent first. This feature should NOT be used to abort a match before you lose and your rating changes. This behavior is cheating!!
SEE ALSO: invite, join

> help look

NAME: look - Take a short look at a game
SYNOPSIS: look name
DESCRIPTION: You can type look name to take a quick look at name's game. You can use this command without watching a player or if you are playing yourself.
SEE ALSO: watch

> help man

NAME: man - alias for help
SYNOPSIS: man
man topic
DESCRIPTION: The man command is equivalent to the help command.
SEE ALSO: help

> help message

NAME: message - Leave a message for a user
SYNOPSIS: message name message
message
DESCRIPTION: You can use message name message to leave a message for a user who is not logged in. The message will be displayed to name when she or he logs in again. The message will only be displayed once. The next time name logs in she or he won't see the message again. If you just type message without any argument you'll see the messages that were left for you since you logged in. As this command is limited to one line, this feature is for short notes. If you want to write longer messages please use electronic mail. Please note that name completion doesn't work for this command.
SEE ALSO: names

> help motd

NAME: motd - Display the message of the day
SYNOPSIS: motd
DESCRIPTION: Whenever you log in you'll see a message of the day telling you about news and changes. If you want to see this message again you can use this command for that purpose.

Half way there.. now read some more, or go back to the Command List...

> help move

NAME

move - Moving pieces on the board

SYNOPSIS

move from-to ...
move from to ...
from-to ...
from to ...

DESCRIPTION

The move command tells the server what pieces you want to move. Each move must be given as 'from to' or 'from-to'. As from and to you can use the numbers between 1 and 24 and the words 'bar' and 'off'. You can use a space character or '-' to separate from and to. To separate moves you have to use a space character .

Example: move bar-5 bar 5 bar - 5 bar -5 moves 4 pieces from the bar to position 5.
move can be abbreviated by typing m.
bar can be abbreviated by typing b.
off can be abbreviated by typing o.
You can omit the word move and e.g. just type 1 3 instead of move 1 3

If your automove toggle is set to YES the server will move for you if there is only one possible move.

Note: If you have still have a piece on the bar, typing b 22 will not move that piece off the bar. You must use m b 22.

SEE ALSO

toggle, toggle-automove

> help names

NAME: names - name completion
DESCRIPTION: For most commands that need a name as an argument you only have to type the first few letters of a name. If you type tell ma Hi! and the only player whose name starts with 'ma' is marvin, the server will do a tell marvin Hi! for you. If there is another user called 'mama' the server will complain that you should greet either marvin or mama. (Note that in this example t ma Hi! is even shorter and that this feature does not work for the last, message and ratings commands). The name completion will first try to find a name that matches case sensitive. If this doesn't work it will try to find a name that matches case insensitive.

> help off

NAME: off - bear off pieces with every possible move
SYNOPSIS: off
DESCRIPTION: Often you will want to bear off one piece per move in the final phase of a game. If you have rolled a double you may want to bear off 4 pieces, otherwise you may want to bear off 2 pieces. Instead of entering the moves to do that manually, you can issue the off command and FIBS will bear off for you automatically if possible.
SEE ALSO: toggle-greedy

> help oldboard

NAME: oldboard - Display the board of a saved game.
SYNOPSIS: oldboard name
DESCRIPTION: If there is a saved game with a player called name the board of this game is displayed. Name completion doesn't work for this command, so the name has to match the player's name exactly. The oldboard command can only be used while you are not playing.
SEE ALSO: names, oldmoves

> help oldmoves

NAME: oldmoves - Display the moves of a saved game.
SYNOPSIS: oldmoves name
DESCRIPTION: The oldmoves command displays a list of the moves of a saved game with a player called name. Name completion doesn't work for this command, so the name argument has to match the player's name exactly. This command can be used to display games that are already over and not displayed by the 'show saved' command.
LIMITATIONS You shouldn't wait too long before using this command, because games that are saved but already over will be erased every few days. If you try to display the moves of a game you are currently playing the last moves may be missing, because they are buffered before they are saved. The output is a little minimalistic. Information about who is X and who is O is only displayed for games that were started since version 1.198 of the server. If you start a new game in a match the last game will be erased. If you want a list of it's moves use this command before you type join to start a new game in the match. It's up to you to see the moves that scroll from your screen.
SEE ALSO: names, oldboard, show, version

> help otter

NAME: otter - Offering an instant redouble that is an otter
SYNOPSIS: otter
DESCRIPTION: An instant redouble of an offered raccoon is called otter. You can use the command redouble instead. otter can only used for the third instant redouble while redouble can be used for any of several instant redoubles in a row.
SEE ALSO: beaver, raccoon, redouble

> help panic

NAME: panic - save a game to a special file
SYNOPSIS: panic
DESCRIPTION: Use the panic command if you find a bug while playing. Your game is then saved in a special file together with the names of the players and the current time. To find the bug in the source code I'll need more information. Send mail describing the bug in detail to: marvin@mdstud.chalmers.se
I hope you'll never use this command. This command will be erased in the future because it isn't very helpful anymore.

> help password

NAME: password - change password
SYNOPSIS: password old new new
DESCRIPTION: The password command can be used to change your password. You have to give your new password twice to avoid typos. The password will appear on the screen while you type it! Make sure that nobody is looking at your screen while you change your password. If the cls command works on your terminal it's a good idea to use it right after changing your password.
SEE ALSO: cls

> help pip

NAME: pip - Display pip count
SYNOPSIS: pip
DESCRIPTION: With the pip command you can see your and your opponent's pipcount. For those who don't know what 'pipcount' means: it's the total amount of points you have to move your pieces to bear them all off. This command can only be used if both players have set their 'allowpip' toggle to YES (that's the default). Type toggle allowpip if you think that using a computer to compute the pipcount is not fair. This command can also be used while watching a game if both players have set their allowpip-toggle to YES.
SEE ALSO: toggle, toggle-allowpip

> help raccoon

NAME: raccoon - Offering an instant redouble that is a raccoon
SYNOPSIS: raccoon
DESCRIPTION: An instant redouble of an offered beaver is called raccoon. You can use the command redouble instead. raccoon can only used for the second instant redouble while redouble can be used for any of several instant redoubles in a row.
SEE ALSO: beaver, otter, redouble

> help ratings

NAME: ratings - Display information from the rating list
SYNOPSIS: ratings [name] [from number] [to number]
DESCRIPTION: You'll see the first 20 entries of the current rating list if you just type ratings. You can see the ratings of all players that are currently logged in with the who command. To see the ratings of a player called name type ratings name.
The optional 'from number' and 'to number' arguments override the default positions 'from 1 to 20' for the rating list output. The length of this list is limited to 100 positions at a time. Every player starts with a rating of 1500 points and an experience of 0. Every match you play (except unlimited matches) changes your rating. If your experience is greater than 50 you'll appear in the rating list. To see how rating changes are calculated type help formula. To see a brief calculation of the rating change after a match make sure that your ratings toggle is set to YES.
ETHICS: There are several ways to manipulate the rating list and get a high rating. This is cheating and not fair. Until there is a way to prevent cheating the sysop will erase accounts that have been manipulated.
SEE ALSO: formula, names, toggle, toggle-ratings, who

> help rawwho

NAME

rawwho - who command for client programs

SYNOPSIS

rawwho same arguments as the who command

DESCRIPTION

The rawwho command produces almost the same output as the who command. The main difference is that the output is easier to parse by client programs. For that purpose the following differences to the output of the normal who command exist:

No title line is sent.
each line representing a user starts with the text 'who: '.
the status field contains the character '-' (minus) for each field that the normal who output shows as a ' ' (blank).
player names are not truncated.
The text 'who:end' is sent as the last line of the output. Note that there is no ' ' (blank) between 'who:' and 'end'.

SEE ALSO

who

> help rawboard

NAME

rawboard - how to interpret the raw board output

DESCRIPTION

If the rawboard toggle is set to yes you won't see the text representation of the board but a number of tokens separated by colons. The tokens sent by the server and their meaning are (the first token is always the word 'board'): (tokens marked with + are new)

+ name: the player's name
name: the opponent's name
match length: match length or 9999 for unlimited matches
player got: player's points in the match so far
opponent got: opponent's points in the match so far
board: 26 numbers giving the board. Positions 0 and 25 represent the bars for the players (see below). Positive numbers represent O's pieces negative numbers represent X's pieces
turn: -1 if it's X's turn, +1 if it's O's turn 0 if the game is over
dice: 2 numbers giving the player's dice. If it's the players turn and she or he hasn't rolled, yet both numbers are 0
+ dice: the opponent's dice (2 numbers)
cube: the number on the doubling cube
may double: 1 if player is allowed to double, 0 otherwise
+ may double: the same for the opponent
was doubled: 1 if your opponent has just doubled, 0 otherwise
color: -1 if you are X, +1 if you are O
direction: -1 if you play from position 24 to position 1 +1 if you play from position 1 to position 24
home: 0 or 25 depending on direction (obsolete but included anyway)
bar: 25 or 0 (see home)
on home: number of pieces already removed from the board by player
+ on home: same for opponent
on bar: number of player's pieces on the bar
+ on bar: same for opponent
can move: a number between 0 and 4. This is the number of pieces you can move. This token is valid if it's your turn and you have already rolled.
forced move: don't use this token
did crawford: don't use this token
+ redoubles: maximum number of instant redoubles in unlimited matches

SEE ALSO

board, boardstyle

> help redouble

NAME: redouble - accepting doubles by redoubling
SYNOPSIS: redouble
beaver
raccoon
otter
DESCRIPTION: A beaver or an "instant redouble" is an unlimited match feature that allows the receiving party of a double to accept it at twice the level at which it was offered. A raccoon is an instant redouble of a beaver and an "otter" is an instant redouble of a raccoon. There are no special names for further redoubles. Each of the redoubles can be accepted or rejected the same way normal doubles are accepted or rejected. The maximum number of instant redoubles in a row is the minimum of both players' 'redoubles' variable. This variable is initially set to 0 but it can be changed with the set command. The commands beaver, raccoon and otter are only allowed if the redouble really is a beaver, raccoon or otter. The command redouble can be used for either of them and for further redoubles.
SEE ALSO: accept, double, reject, set

> help reject

NAME: reject
SYNOPSIS: reject
DESCRIPTION: You can use the reject command if your opponent has doubled and you don't think you should accept the double. Use accept if you do. You can also use this command if your opponent wants to resign and you don't agree with the number of points you'll win if you accept.
SEE ALSO: accept, double, resign

> help resign

NAME

resign - resign a game

SYNOPSIS

resign how

DESCRIPTION

You can type resign how if you want to resign. Your opponent will be asked to accept or reject your resign. The number of points you lose is determined by how. You can give the following values of how:

normal - You'll lose the number of points on the cube.
gammon - You'll lose twice the number of points on the cube.
backgammon - You'll lose three times the number of points on the cube.

You can use n, g and b instead of normal, gammon and backgammon.

SEE ALSO

accept, reject

> help roll

NAME: roll - roll the dice
SYNOPSIS: roll
DESCRIPTION: With the roll command you tell the server to roll the dice for you. The server program then tells you the two numbers it rolled for you and how many pieces you have to move. If you are not allowed to double because you don't own the cube or the crawford rule applies the server will roll for you automatically. If you set your double toggle to NO the server will roll for you even if you were allowed to double instead.
roll can be abbreviated by typing r.
SEE ALSO: crawford, double, toggle, toggle-double

> help rules

NAME

rules - The basic rules of backgammon

SYNOPSIS

help ruleX

DESCRIPTION

Type 'help ruleX' to see rule X. Currently X can be a number between 1 and 9.

When you have loaded the Rules file once, you should use the navigation features of your browser (such as the Back and Forward buttons in Netscape or Mosaic), unless you like like waiting on the information dirt-track :-)

The rules are:

These are not the 'official' rules word for word but my version of them. They should say pretty much the same as the official rules. I left out some rules that have no meaning for the server (like: what happens if you roll the dice before your opponent has finished her or his move - the server simply doesn't allow this). Currently there are no rules for matches here. They will be added later.

Okay.. now read some more, or go back to the Command List...

> help save

NAME: save - save your current toggle settings
SYNOPSIS: save
DESCRIPTION: If you want to save the settings of your toggles just type save. The next time you log in the server will restore the toggles as you saved them. The only toggles that won't be saved are the 'double' and 'greedy' toggles (which are reset to YES before every game anyway).
SEE ALSO: toggle,

> help say

NAME: say - talk to your opponent
SYNOPSIS: say message
DESCRIPTION: The say command allows you to say something to your opponent. It can only be used while you are playing. If you want to say something when you are not playing use the tell command. To say something to your opponent and all watching players use the kibitz command. To say something to the watchers only you can use the whisper command. You can use the single letter s as an abbreviation for say.
SEE ALSO: kibitz, shout, tell, whisper

> help screen

NAME: screen - how to tell FIBS about your screen
DESCRIPTION: Some commands produce more output than will fit on your screen. You can tell FIBS about the size of your window or screen by setting the two variables 'linelength' and 'pagelength'. The pagelength should be set to the number of lines in your window, the linelength should be set to the number of columns (or to a value slightly less than that). If you have a 80x24 screen you might issue the following commands:
> set pagelength 24
> set linelength 79
You should try 78 and 80 for the linelength too and see what you like best. You can then use the 'save' command to make those settings permanent. Using the values from this example FIBS would wrap lines so they contain at most 79 characters and if the output of single command exceeds 23 lines it will print [Return] in the bottom line of the screen. Just hit your return key to see the next page of output, or type any other command to continue without seeing the rest of the output.
SEE ALSO: save, set

> help set

NAME

set - how to set variables that are not toggles

SYNOPSIS

set
set variable
set variable value

DESCRIPTION

With the set commands it is possible to assign a value to a variable that is not a toggle. set without argument displays the values of all available variables. set with one argument variable displays the value of variable. set with two arguments sets variable to value.

There are currently 4 variables you can set to a value:
'redoubles': see help on redouble for details
'boardstyle': see help on boardstyle
'sortwho'. see help on sortwho
'timezone': see help on timezones

SEE ALSO

save, toggle

> help shout

NAME: shout - say something to all users
SYNOPSIS: shout message
DESCRIPTION: With the shout command you can say message to all users who are logged in and whose silent toggle is set to NO. If your own silent toggle is set to YES you can't use this command.
LIMITATIONS; The '!!' command doesn't work with shouts. The number of shouts is limited for newcomers. This is a Backgammon server. If you want to talk to lots of people rather than play Backgammon please use IRC (ask your system administrator how to use IRC).
SEE ALSO: kibitz, say, tell, toggle-silent, whisper, !!

> help show

NAME

show - Display information

SYNOPSIS

show item

DESCRIPTION

You can use the show command to get information about item. There are only a few items currently available:

show games: gives you a list of all games that are played at the moment.
show saved: tells which of your matches are saved and what the score is. If one of your opponents in those matches is currently logged in, you'll see an asterisk '*' before his or her name. If your opponent is logged in and ready for a match you'll see two asterisks in front of the name.
show watchers: tells you who is watching who.
show max: displays the maximum of simultaneous users.

> help shutdown

NAME: shutdown - shutdown the server
SYNOPSIS: shutdown minutes [restart]
shutdown now [restart]
shutdown stop
DESCRIPTION: This command shuts down the server. It can only be used by privileged users. If the first argument is a number the server shuts down in that number of minutes. If the second argument is the word now the server shuts down immediately. If the word stop is given as the first argument the shutdown sequence is halted. You can use the optional argument restart to restart the server immediately after the shutdown. This is useful for installing a new version of the server. During the last 10 minutes of a shutdown sequence the server disables all new logins.

> help sortwho

NAME

sortwho - how the who command sorts it's output

DESCRIPTION

The who command can sort it's output in various styles. The style it uses is determined by the 'sortwho' variable. Valid values are:

login - sort by login time
name - sort by user name
rating - sort by rating

You can set the 'sortwho' variable to one of the above values with the set command. If you want 'who' to sort by name you type:
> set sortwho name

SEE ALSO

set, who

> help stat

NAME: stat - display system usage information about the server
SYNOPSIS: stat
DESCRIPTION: This command displays information about the system usage of the server on it's host machine (fraggel65.mdstud.chalmers.se). It useful for the sysop only.

> help tell

NAME: tell - say something to a specific player
SYNOPSIS: tell name message
DESCRIPTION: The tell command is used to tell name that you say message to her or to him. If you are playing with name you can use the say command instead. To say something to all players and watchers of a game use the kibitz command. To say something to the watchers of a game only use the whisper command and to say something to all users use the shout command. You can use the single letter t as an abbreviation of tell.
SEE ALSO: kibitz, say, shout, whisper

> help time

NAME: time - display the current time
SYNOPSIS: time
time zone
date
date zone
DESCRIPTION: The time command displays the current time. The timezone used for this is determined by the 'timezone' variable (default is UTC) or by the optional argument.
SEE ALSO: set, timezones

> help tinyfugue

NAME: tinyfugue - a few hints on using the TinyFugue client
DESCRIPTION get it by ftp: from ferkel.ucsb.edu pub/mud/Clients/tf.2.1.beta2.tar.Z. NEW: An improved version that uses a separate window to display the backgammon board is available now by ftp from figment.csee.usf.edu in directory pub/misc/FIBS_client Use the patch file to update from the original client or get the file tf.2.1.beta2.fibs.tar.Z for the whole package. unpack it using the gunzip and the tar program. read the documentation that comes with TinyFugue. (esp. INSTALLATION) edit the Makefile if necessary. I had to replace -DTERMCAP by -DHARDCODE in the FLAGS=... line near the top of it. Try this if the program tells you it can't use visual mode when you run it. type 'make install' create a file called .tfrc in your home directory containing the lines:: /visual on
/addworld FIBS your_login_name your_password 129.16.235.165 4321
(leave out name _and_ password if you don't like plain passwords on disk)
make sure others can't read the file: chmod 600 .tfrc run the client If you have problems using it, type the client's /help command. That's as much help as I can give. PLEASE don't send mail to me about problems with it. It worked for me and all I wanted to do is showing you that MUD clients can be used (and maybe expanded) for FIBS. Other graphical interfaces are also available.

>help toggle

NAME

toggle - display or change the value of toggles

SYNOPSIS

toggle
toggle option

DESCRIPTION

toggle option toggles the status of option.
toggle without any option gives you a list of currently available options and their status.
You can type to instead of toggle.

When you have loaded the Toggles file once, you should use the navigation features of your browser (such as the Back and Forward buttons in Netscape or Mosaic), unless you like like waiting on the information dirt-track :-)

Valid options are:

  allowpip         autoboard        autodouble
  autoroll         automove         bell
  crawford         double           greedy
  moreboards       moves            notify
  ratings          rawboard         ready
  report           silent           telnet
  wrap

Type help toggle-option to find out what option means. Example: To find out what the 'bell' toggle means type: help toggle-bell

Okay.. if you're reading linearly carry on, or go back to the Command List...

> help unwatch

NAME: unwatch - stop watching a player
SYNOPSIS: unwatch
DESCRIPTION: unwatch is the opposite of watch. You stop watching the player you are currently watching.
SEE ALSO: watch

> help version

NAME: version - display version number of the server
SYNOPSIS: version
DESCRIPTION: Type version if you want to know what version of the server is currently running.

> help watch

NAME: watch - watch a player
SYNOPSIS: watch name
DESCRIPTION: watch name can be used to watch the game name plays. You'll be informed about all rolls, moves and doubles in that game. If your autoboard toggle is YES you'll also see the board after each move. The board will be shown from name's point of view. You can't watch if you're playing yourself and you can't watch more than one player at the same time. Use the unwatch command if you don't want to watch name anymore. While watching you can use the kibitz and whisper commands to talk to players and other watchers.
SEE ALSO: kibitz, toggle, toggle-autoboard, unwatch, whisper

> help wave

NAME: wave - wave goodbye before leaving
SYNOPSIS: wave
DESCRIPTION: All players who want to receive shouts are informed about the fact that you wave goodbye because you want to leave. If used twice it can also be used to log out.
SEE ALSO: bye

> help where

NAME: where - display full hostnames
SYNOPSIS: where
where name
DESCRIPTION: The where command can be used to display the hostname usually shown by the who command. Unlike the who command the hostname is always shown without length limitation. (The who command displays at most 29 characters of the hostname). Note that this command (unlike the last command) uses name completion but it can only be used to look up users who are currently logged in. If no parameter name is given the server will show your hostname.
SEE ALSO: last, names, who

> help whisper

NAME: whisper - say something to watchers of a game
SYNOPSIS: whisper message
DESCRIPTION: You can use the whisper command if you are watching or playing a game and want to say something to all users watching this game. If you want to say something to the players too use the kibitz command. You can use wh as an abbreviation for whisper.
SEE ALSO: kibitz, say, shout, tell

> help who

NAME

who - display information about currently logged in users

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

This command gives you a list of all players that are currently logged in. The optional arguments ready, playing and away limit the output to those players who are ready, playing or away. You can also give a player's name as an argument to get information about that player only, use the argument count to find out how many people are logged in or use from site to get a list of all players who are logged in from a site containing site as a substring. There are several columns of output for every player:

S: Status of the player. It is displayed in 3 columns:
1. - P player is playing
  - R player is ready to play
  - - player is refusing to play
2. W player is watching a game
3. A player is marked away
username: The name you can use to contact the player
rating: The player's rating in the rating system.
games: The number of games played by the player.
login: login time
idle: Idle time of the user in minutes and seconds.
from: name or Internet address of the player's computer

You can use w as an abbreviation of who. The way who sorts it's output is determined by the 'sortwho' variable.

SEE ALSO

ratings, set, sortwho

> help whois

NAME

whois - Display information about a player

SYNOPSIS

whois name

DESCRIPTION

The whois command can be used to get information about a player. You will see the following information about the player:

the last login time
the last logout time (if known)
whether she or he is logged in at the moment or not and if so:
- whether she or he is ready/playing/watching/away
the idle time if she or he is logged in
rating and experience (No information on the rank in the rating list is given. Don't ask for it, I will not add it)
her or his email address if she or he has used the address command to make the address known to others.

Please note that this command does not use name completion so the name has to be given exactly as it is.

SEE ALSO

address, names

> help !!

NAME: !! - repeat the last command
SYNOPSIS: !!
DESCRIPTION: If you want to repeat your last command just type !!. This does not work for the shout, tell, say, kibitz and whisper commands. For the message command it only works if you used it without arguments to check if there are new messages for you.

Congratulations! Having read everything up to here, you now know how to use FIBS. Now go back to the Command List or the main Help Page.

Mike Quinn
NEC Technologies (UK) Ltd.
mquinn@nectech.co.uk
(FIBS name: mikeq)