h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

MB = Message board or forum, much like this.

(looks around) What happened here...anyone still around? (stretches his wings)

No but monkeyspoon would be welcome here.

I'll go and net him, and bring him over here.

If/when he comes...

(finds somewhere to seat himself) It's quiet...too quiet...

Hey all. Furry Fox/Wolf thing here, call me C.S

Oh, hello.. Notice how things are quiet when two of you pop up? Bad timing, should have came around in April-May time, much busier.

Did I mention your tie? Hope I did, ignore my towel as it isn't yours.

Telnet is remarkably easy, actually.

I used to participate in the original Supermegatopia MUCK as "Evil Twin" and "Polychroma", but that was about three or four years ago. It is a good place to "get your paws wet" regarding the furry community, and FurryMUCK is not at all bad, provided you avoid areas marked as "Adult" on WhereAre (aka WA).

The first thing you need to get into a MUCK is a good Telnet client. Telnet.exe, which comes with pretty much all versions of Windows since Win95, is NOT a good Telnet client.

The two most commonly used appear to be MUSHClient and Trebuchet TK.

MUSHClient: http://www.gammon.com.au/mushclient/mushclient.htm
Trebuchet TK: http://www.belfry.com/fuzzball/trebuchet/

Personally, I use Trebuchet.

Next, you need the address of the MUD, MUSH, or MUCK you want to connect to. I don't remember the address of SMTMuck, but FurryMUCK can be found at telnet://muck.furry.com:8888

Once you've opened up your client and connected to the appropriate MU*, you log in, generally by typing connect [name] [password]

If you don't have a character on a MUCK, there is often a guest account available, with limitations on time and access, for you to try the MUCK out with. For FM (and, if I recall, SMT) the guest account is username: guest password: guest, so you would type "connect guest guest" and hit enter.

You move around by typing the name of a direction or exit (e.g.: n, north, s, south, in, out, up, down, etc.) followed by pressing enter. To talk to others in the same room as you, you type "say" followed by your message (e.g.: "say Hey, everyone, I'm new here!"). To perform an action, you type "pose". (e.g. "pose looks around, looking very lost.")

Once you have an account -- the vast majority of MUCKs are free -- you get into only SLIGHTLY more complicated things: descriptions and properties. Your best bet here is to use a MUCK that has "editplayer," which both SMT and FM have.

This program sets your species, description, gender, and other flags.

When you want to log out, all you do is type QUIT in all-caps. If you're on a character of your own, as opposed to a guest, it's probably best to go "home" first, which is another command built into most MUCKs.