Chapters 3 : Basic Internet Services
Sections 6 : Chats and Teleconferencing
IRC stands for "Internet Relay Chat". It was originally written by
Jarkko Oikarinen (jto@tolsun.oulu.fi) in 1988. Since starting in Finland, it
has been used in over 60 countries around the world. It was designed as a
replacement for the "talk" program but has become much more than that. IRC is
a multi-user chat system, where people convene on "channels"
(a virtual place, usually with a topic of conversation) to talk in groups,
or privately. IRC is constantly evolving, so the way things work one week
may not be the way they work the next. Read the MOTD (message of the day)
every time you use IRC to keep up on any new happenings or server updates.
IRC gained international fame during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, where
updates from around the world came across the wire, and most irc users who
were online at the time gathered on a single channel to hear these
reports. IRC had similar uses during the coup against Boris Yeltsin in
September 1993, where IRC users from Moscow were giving live reports
about the unstable situation there.
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