The original author of NUTS is Neil Robertson and he owns the copyright to the code. He allows everyone who is interested to obtain a copy of the code and modify it as they see fit provided you leave the copyright notice and the reference to NUTS in the source code.
Neil's latest code is version 3.3.3 (as of November 20, 1996). Version 3.3.3 (released November 1996) is now supposed to be his final version. You may obtain the latest code (as well as previous versions) from the main FTP site for NUTS which is ftp.ccs.neu.edu in the directory /pub/mud/servers/misc/nuts. I have created a gzipped tar file (via the use of RCS) which contains a complete copy of all versions of NUTS right back to the 3.0.0 alpha release.
Neil completely rewrote NUTS when he first created the 3.x.x releases. The main features in the latest release from Neil is support for messages in colour, the ability to link ports, and cloning. These three features are not yet in my version of code (which you may also find here).
When I first learned of NUTS based talkers (about three years ago), Neil's latest code was his 2.3.0 release. That release of code formed the base for my version. Neil has since released several versions of NUTS in a 3.x series. I have chosen not to use any of the 3.x versions as it would involove too much work to apply all of the changes I have done to the 2.3.0 release. It would be far easier for me to add the new features introduced in Neil's 3.x release to my current code.
I use RCS (revision control system) to track all the changes I have made to the code. My latest version of NUTS is my 3.23 revision which is currently undergoing final testing prior to being realeased. I have made substantial changes to the internal operation of the code and to the format of the init_data file. The code has been extensively modified to use a set of doubly linked list routines to keep track of area information, strings used to identify user levels, and the list of users who are logged in to the talker. The use of linked lists and other changes have resulted in most features of the talker being modifiable on the fly.
Until testing has been completed on my latest version of code, the version of code available here is my 4.5 version in a gzipped tar file (486576 bytes).
This file contains just about everything you need to get started except for an executable copy of the program, an init_data file with your own area layout, and the files to describe the areas. A Makefile is included which will allow you to compile the program. You might need to modify it in order to compile the NUTS source in your version of unix.
If you want to know what I have been doing to the code, you can read my history of changes file. I have also included my TODO list which lists any known problems, requested changes, and other ideas which are under consideration.
The person who is known as Birddog on the Lintilla talker wrote some helpful documentation. I am in the process of updating this documentation to match my latest version of code (NOT the version of code currently here).
Anyway, here is the documentation currently available:
