How to use the MIT 6.001 zephyr instance

Zephyr is a system on Athena for real time communications between users. We have set up a 6.001 zephyr "instance", which is like a newsgroup or a discussion room. People can post messages, and anybody that is subscribed to the instance will see them. This instance should only be used to query LA's and other students about problem sets. If you have something to ask or say about a 6.001 topic other than problem sets, there is another "discussion" instance 6.001.d to use (directions same as below but replace 6.001 with 6.001.d). We will try to have LAs listening to the 6.001 instance whenever they are available, but we also encourage you to help each other when you can. (For more information about zephyr, you can see Athena's on-line help. This can be viewed from a browser from within MIT by clicking here).

To subscribe to the 6.001 zephyr instance:
Type '"zctl sub message 6.001 \*" (without the quotes) at the athena% prompt. This allows you to see messages sent by other users to the 6.001 instance. This command will only subscribe you for the rest of this log on, if you want to be subscribed each time you log on you can use "zctl add message 6.001 \*". (To undo this use "zctl del message 6.001 \*"
To ask a question:
Once you have subscribed to the 6.001 zephyr instance, you can send messages to everybody else that is currently logged in and subscribed to the 6.001 instance with "zwrite -i 6.001". If you have a general question, such as "on problem 4 what does it mean by pretty-print?", then just ask it directly. However, do not zwrite code to the 6.001 zephyr instance. If you have a question that requires someone to look at your code, or if you do not want to ask a question privately, you can use the instance to locate a person to help you. For example, you might ask, "Can anyone help me debug my version of factorial from problem 3?" If your username is bitdiddl, then you might see a response such as "sure bitdiddl, I'll help" from jrhacker. Then, you can use "zwrite jrhacker" to respond. At that point, you can send your code directly to jrhacker (using normal X-windows cut and paste functions) if he or she asks for it. That way, only jrhacker sees the code, and not everybody that is currently subscribed.
To look at the archive:
There is an archive on Athena of all of the messages that have been sent to the 6.001 zephyr instance. If you log into Athena and type attach zlog, then the archive can be found in the (very large) file /mit/zlog/6.001. Because of the size of this file you probably do not want to load all of it (because it takes a LONG time). You can use tail to read the most recent messages. Ex. "tail -99 /mit/zlog/6.001 | more" will give you the last 99 lines of the logfile.