Dial-Up Days

A terminal adventure set in small-town America, 1998. You are free to experiment; this page demonstrates the grammar without giving you an itinerary or an ending answer key.

Setting

You're a kid with a pager and a problem. One node in your homemade network went down, and you need to fix it. The town is yours to explore, but your activities do not go unnoticed.

The command surface changes with context:

In town, you move, inspect, take things, and talk to people.

At a computer, you use that machine's shell and filesystem.

On the pager, you inspect and control your network.

Type help whenever you enter a different surface. It reports the commands that apply there.

Basic Commands

Movement uses cardinal directions and contextual pairs:

north, south, east, west — street navigation

in, out — enter and exit buildings

up, down — stairs and ladders

Interaction:

look — examine your surroundings

examine [thing] or x [thing] — inspect something nearby

x inv [item] — inspect something you are carrying

search — look for hidden items

talk [name] — speak with someone

use [thing] — interact with a person, object, or terminal

inventory or inv — list what you are carrying

use pager — check your device

wait — spend one move without changing locations

sleep — advance to the next day from your bedroom

Terminal Rhythm

Most useful terminal sequences repeat the same shape:

inspect -> decide -> mutate -> verify
command [arguments] [source] [destination]

For example, dir A:\ inspects a mounted disk, A:\PROGRAM.EXE runs a program by path, and clearlogs changes the machine's event record. Use eventvwr to inspect that record. Locked systems accept their interactive prompts or login <username> [password].

Network tools preserve the same argument-first grammar:

telnet <address> opens a remote shell when the route and access permit it.

mv <source> <destination> moves or renames a file on surfaces that support it.

set stores environment values such as an address for reuse.

These are intentionally narrow, period-specific interfaces. Read the feedback instead of assuming that every DOS, pager, or crawler verb behaves like a modern Linux shell.

Pager

Enter with use pager. Then:

ls explores the pager filesystem.

cat LIST.TXT checks the authoritative network roster.

cat NOTES.TXT recalls earned contacts, open invitations, access leads,

and hardware left behind. It follows your saved run and does not expose unexplored places or new passwords.

hijack <bot> opens a remote session through a bot you control.

ftp <bot> ... transfers tools and files to or from a live bot.

exit returns to town.

Time

Each day has 24 moves divided into morning, afternoon, evening, and night. Moving or using wait advances the town clock by one move. Some people and locations follow schedules. Sleeping at home advances to the next day and resets the day's moves.

Heat

Your actions have consequences. The more attention you draw, the harder things get. Heat does not passively disappear while you type: sleeping at home normally reduces it by one, while discoveries and some choices can raise it. At high heat you may be too paranoid to sleep. If it reaches the limit, the story comes to you.

Public PCs are fragile footholds. Clearing your activity logs and recovering the floppy reduces their daily discovery chance from 50% to 25%; clean work still carries risk. Official and monitored systems retain their own risks. Friendship can provide a steadier foothold on a person's own machine when they explicitly agree to keep it running.

People

Relationships are another way into the town. Return after some time has passed and follow up on what a person actually said. Sam's investigation can begin through conversation. An invitation is not an automatic commitment: read the offered choices and decide whether to take it on.

Tips

Pay attention to what people say

Inspect first, act second, and verify what changed

Keep track of which files and devices are physically with you

Some doors only open at certain times

Your pager is your lifeline

If experimentation stops being fun, use help, man dial-up-days,

wiki dial-up-days-basics, or ask Clide