Why does the talk command fail between SunOS and any other manufacturer's equipment(like DEC)?

	and any other manufacturer's equipment(like DEC)? 
	SunOS and Solaris use the old BSD 4.2 version of talk. 
	The old talk uses "machine dependent" byte ordering. Since
	DEC has different byte order the two talks can not
	communicate (even if you use "otalk" on the DEC
	machines).
	
	Also, most vendors have the newer version of 
	talk from BSD-4.3 and this version is not compatible
	with the Sun Version which is BSD-4.2.

	The solution is to get and install the new version
	of talk because it uses "network" byte ordering and
	it is compatible with most Vendors current talk 
	implementations.
	
	"New Talk" is available via anonymous ftp from 

		ftp.ececs.uc.edu:/pub/sun-faq/Source/ntalk.tar.gz

	This contains a version of new talk that compiles on
	both Solaris and SunOS. The Solaris version does not
	require the Berkeley compatability libraries.
	
	Finally, a program called Ytalk can be used with either
	"New talk" or "Old talk" and compiles on all versions
	of SunOS (including 5.x).

	Ytalk can be obtained from 

		ftp.ececs.uc.edu:/pub/sun-faq/Source/ytalk-3.2.tar.gz

	Last Updated:  November 12, 1995

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