JHM -- Web Entrance

JHM

JHM is an ongoing project to investigate text-based virtual realities. We provide several means of access for web users:

Telnet

For an interactive JHM session, you can telnet to jhm.ccs.neu.edu, port 1709.

WWW

The help system for JHM is available as hypertext, as are a catalog of JHM projects, an experimental object browser and some of our internal mailing lists. You might also want to check out Ron, our first hypertextified user, or search for other interesting objects in the Big Book of Objects. Or maybe you just want to see who's logged in.

About this page

JHM's "home page" on the World Wide Web is not, strictly speaking, an HTML document. It's written in jtext, an internal hypertext format used by JHM.

In fact, everything provided by JHM's HTTP server is jtext before it becomes HTML. Jtext has no standard read or print representation. Rather, it can be entered into the database in at least two forms (MOO-code values and `help help-format'), and can be printed at users in at least four, including a linemode format (for our telnet users) and HTML, which is how the web entrance works.

Jtext is, at the moment, mostly undocumented. We're working on changing that. Meanwhile, the best way to find out more about jtext is to come online and ask us about it; the people who know the most about jtext right now are James, Jay, Joe, and Ron.

Related information

Larry Masinter (Larry@JH) and Erik Ostrom (Joe@JH) wrote a paper about combining MOO and Gopher (also available as LaTeX, PostScript, or plaintext), based on software developed at JHM.

Lynn Cherny (lynn@JH) is writing her dissertation about conversation and community on JHM; here are some papers she's written.

Remy Evard (r'm@JH) wrote a paper for LISA about using MUDs for systems administration.

Andrew Wilson (Networker@JH) maintains a page of VR-related information, most of which seems to be about MOOs.