
	This program was conceived and the core written by Roy Trubshaw during
his final year at Essex University. Acknowledgement is given to the help
and encouragement of the following illustrious personages:
Richard Bartle (current maintainer), Nigel Roberts and Brian Mallett (see
graveyard!). There now follows a short treatise on what MUD accepts as valid
command and what not!
	MUD's natural language interface is fairly primitive, to keep down
the code. The sort of sentences it can understand are of the form
<verb> <object> WITH <instrmnt> and may be separated by AND, THEN, a comma,
a full stop, or a return. MUD doesn't require that all the fields be present,
and so long as it has a verb it will accept virtually any old rubbish and
re-execute the last verb. This is a feature, ie was put in deliberately, so
don't complain if,for example, SCORE <cr><rubbish><cr> does 2 SCORE's: since
SCORE needs no object, <rubbish> will do! This can annoy if the last thing
you did was a move, but as you play you will find the facility becoming more
and more useful, eg GET AXE, GOAT, TREASURE.
	In its efforts to get a readable sentence, MUD will throw out all
manner of things, eg it will parse OPEN KITCHEN DOOR as OPEN DOOR as it
ignores the 2nd word if it knows the other 2. As a result, error messages
are less frequent, but when they do come they're unhelpful. This will be
rectified 'one day'. Also, MUD will accept nigh on anything instead of
WITH, so OPEN DOOR GYROSCOPE KEYS will work. So beware FROM being the same as
WITH...
	In order to help with long words, MUD keeps a set of pronouns
maintained. IT is the last object mentioned, HIM is the last male, HER is
the last female, THEM is the last player, and also the default object and
instrument, if there are any, are also told (the default is the last anything
you typed, rather than you typed or was mentioned by MUD).
	There are problems if you carry more than 1 of the same object, as
MUD takes the first one every time. So DOUSE BRAND will only get the first one
and you'll have to put it in a container or drop it in another room before
you can douse the other. To light one brand from another is at least a bit
more easy, you just drop the one you want to light and hold the other, if
possible...
	To help speed things up, many common commands can be abbreviated,
for example G for GET, DR for DROP. Type COMMANDS and the minimum abbreviation
will be in upper case. Also, WI is short for WITH (in fact virtually anything
is!).
	MUD will set up an ersatz device for you, MUD:, which will last for the
rest of the job. It will also create a LETTER.BOX if you haven't already got
one, so we can send you messages.

	Richard Bartle.

    