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Unofficial AIM Bot Gives Infocom Classics IM Twist

Posted by simoniker on from the lol-ruok-asl-etc? dept.

Fluidic Binary writes "Now instant messenging can waste our time in exciting 'new' ways, according to Wired News, who reveal that an improved unofficial AIM bot has been created to play Infocom games via AOL's messenging client. According to the article: 'The bot, designed by 26-year-old Web programmer Andy Baio, is a Perl script that acts as an intermediary between the games, which are hosted on his server, and AOL's network.'"

5 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing new. Only improved. by zaunuz · · Score: 4, Funny

    This was included in ICQ back in 1999. The only problem was that it didnt work too well, so the lag was horrible, and that was back then playing QuakeWorld with 33.6 modem was acceptable

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    this is probably the most boring sig in the world
  2. Infocom Eh? by Terminaldogma · · Score: 5, Funny

    Great, now I can't even message someone without a chance of being eaten by a Grue. -TD

  3. Too bad rate-limitting kills it by kriston · · Score: 4, Informative

    Too bad the built-in rate-limitting in the AIM service kills this. The Smarterchild people had the same problem so they had to get special accounts that weren't rate-limitted.

    For those who use these services, rate-limitting is that which prevents you from sending too many instant messages too quickly, and too many instant messages to too many recipients too quickly. The servers penalize you for the more messages you send until you can't carry on a conversation, and then they time out and the rate-limitting wears off. This happens in both the oscar protocols and in the TOC protocols used by things like the Minitik project. The rate limits do not wear off when you sign-off, either.

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    Kriston

  4. If you like this kind of thing... by s88 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    take a look at a project I admin and develop on over at sourceforge. Its called jaimbot. Its an AOL IM library and modular AIM bot for plugging in things like this to AIM. We have all sorts of modules (offline and group messenging, stock quotes, games, news, weather, tv info, movie times, ski conditions, etc, as well as an intertaining chatterbot by using MegaHal) and its very simple to add new ones. Follow the link for more details.

    Scott

  5. Re:I like it by FatalTourist · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe ???

    Nerd rage rising... deep breath... don't lose pocket protector...

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    Escape Pod Films: Sketch Comedy and Web Series