About IRC

Internet Relay Chat (called IRC) let a lot of peoples communicate by using the net. We'll introduce you to the history, and give you guidelines on how to use it.

History

IRC is related to BitNet Relay that was a line based chatsystem for users of BitNet. It was developed by Jarkko Oikarinen in 1988. Since the start in Finland, IRC has been used in many countries. It was designed to be a replacement for "talk", the program mostly all UNIX-machines are equiped with. During these years, IRC has developed to become more than an improved "talk". It is now a chatsystem used by people around the world.

Clients

How to use IRC?

What you need is something called an IRC-client, which is a program that lets you connect to an IRC-server. There are several clients to choose from, depending on the platform the user have. Here's a brief list of the most common clients:

• ircII Based on the UNIX-system, it gives an user full control over irc features.
• irssi Also based on the UNIX-system, it generally has more advanced plugins available than ircII. This client is installed on stud.ntnu.no, and to access it, enter the irssi on the command line prompt.
• mIRC This client is one of the most popular on commonly used on the windows platform. The interface is very distinct from the UNIX based systems, providing the traditional windows look. The client has support for file transfer, plugins and scripting. For more information regarding mIRC here
• AmIRC This is Amigas most used irc-client. It supports ARexx-scripting and a lot of other Amiga spesific functions, in addition to the standard IRC-functions.
• Ircle Probably the mac-users favourite irc client. The file exists in hqx-format and is downloadable from here: download.

More information?

• IRC Freqently asked questions
• IRCNO - IRC Organisasjonen i Norges WWW-sider (Norwegian text)
• UNIX shell acess irc client