Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Internet Relay Chat turns 30–and we remember how it changed our lives

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 32 posts

Re: Internet Relay Chat turns 30–and we remember how it changed our lives

#21

Post by caf »

vyrotek wrote: post #16
moonbug wrote: post #2

Would pay good money for comic chat in Slack

I loved comic chat! I was talking to coworkers about chat clients the other day and the usual list came up including ICQ, IRC, AIM, etc. But I was surprised to find no one had heard of comic chat. I mentioned a few others such as PowWow and The Palace and got the the same response. It's amazing how just a few years of age difference shapes our past experiences of the internet so much. It's all moving so fast.

..and Jerkcity, which was originally produced using Comic Chat.

Re: Internet Relay Chat turns 30–and we remember how it changed our lives

#22

Post by TheCycoONE »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #7
moonbug wrote: post #2

Would pay good money for comic chat in Slack

Heh, Comic chat still works you just point it to an IRC server and it works!

As long as it's a small channel that knows what you're doing. Comic chat drops a lot of gibberish into your conversation for users on other clients.

On an unrelated anecdote, I used comic chat for years in the late 90s before I knew what IRC was. I just thought everyone else used the same client, like ICQ.

Re: Internet Relay Chat turns 30–and we remember how it changed our lives

#23

Post by _8j50 »

dijit wrote: post #19
_8j50 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E2E should be for all client to client communication. OTR is opportunistic. Good many many years ago but not enough for this day and age. When you think of a protocol's viability,consider how we'll be stuck with it for decades (like irc and email). Non-e2e support is intolerable.

I hate to be "that guy" but why don't you build it? there's nothing about the protocol that prevents you. And if you want it baked in (cipher negotiation) why not talk to the IRCv3 people?

I'm nobody. The point of a protocol is for others to use it. Also,there are 'ok' alternatives for messaging like signal and wire. But yeah,i don't want to spend all my time working on something no one will use :-)

Re: Internet Relay Chat turns 30–and we remember how it changed our lives

#24

Post by isostatic »

pcurve wrote: post #17

Ahh... IRC... gateway into the world of Warez... In mid 90s, I remember sending /ctcp xdcc list commands to bots and giggling in utter joy while browsing through pirated copies of absurdly priced software like Archicad, electric image animation system, Alias. Then hoarding them knowing full well I'd never use them.. filling them on 100MG iomega zip disks purchased from CompUSA or computer city. Good old days.

Someone started at work recently. They were born in 2000. They were harping on about getting a film from BitTorrent

I told them I was using bitchx to dcc tv episodes down a 10m line before they were born.

They called me granddad :/

Re: Internet Relay Chat turns 30–and we remember how it changed our lives

#25

Post by toast0 »

vyrotek wrote: post #16
moonbug wrote: post #2

Would pay good money for comic chat in Slack

I loved comic chat! I was talking to coworkers about chat clients the other day and the usual list came up including ICQ, IRC, AIM, etc. But I was surprised to find no one had heard of comic chat. I mentioned a few others such as PowWow and The Palace and got the the same response. It's amazing how just a few years of age difference shapes our past experiences of the internet so much. It's all moving so fast.

It's not even age difference though. I don't think powwow had that much penetration (after all it was 'just' ytalk for Windows, plus that weird shared browsing mode, and I think it had a shared whiteboard too?). There were so many things back then that 'everyone' used, except they had like 10% of the market, it was just your sphere of friends that used it. (After all, who would be friends with someone who used msn messenger instead of [your favorite])

Re: Internet Relay Chat turns 30–and we remember how it changed our lives

#26

Post by giancarlostoro »

prawnsalad wrote: post #14
giancarlostoro wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind if I ask what server you use? I currently use ngircd when I do use a server, just find it easier, I dont have any services for accounts setup is the only downside for me but usually they seem to be a pain (never is it just an apt install) and I did have a bouncer setup ages back, I wish more people were IRC friendly. IRCv3 really needs to hurry up, we need at least simpler account registration and all that as pa…

We're actually putting together a Websocket spec at the moment for IRCv3. There has been a few experiments and an implementation that has been getting used more frequently has proven to be helpful here. https://github.com/kiwiirc/webircgateway

This is awesome, I'm really hoping this spec becomes adopted by all major IRCd's

Re: Internet Relay Chat turns 30–and we remember how it changed our lives

#27

Post by linkmotif »

pcurve wrote: post #17

Ahh... IRC... gateway into the world of Warez... In mid 90s, I remember sending /ctcp xdcc list commands to bots and giggling in utter joy while browsing through pirated copies of absurdly priced software like Archicad, electric image animation system, Alias. Then hoarding them knowing full well I'd never use them.. filling them on 100MG iomega zip disks purchased from CompUSA or computer city. Good old days.

The joy of piracy really is the getting and the having.

Re: Internet Relay Chat turns 30–and we remember how it changed our lives

#28

Post by pcurve »

linkmotif wrote: post #27
pcurve wrote: post #17

Ahh... IRC... gateway into the world of Warez... In mid 90s, I remember sending /ctcp xdcc list commands to bots and giggling in utter joy while browsing through pirated copies of absurdly priced software like Archicad, electric image animation system, Alias. Then hoarding them knowing full well I'd never use them.. filling them on 100MG iomega zip disks purchased from CompUSA or computer city. Good old days.

The joy of piracy really is the getting and the having.

haha very true... gotta have something in your stash in case you want something from a bot that enforced upload / download ratios!

Re: Internet Relay Chat turns 30–and we remember how it changed our lives

#30

Post by rconti »

I just followed the "Great Split" link in the article and it just goes to the EFNet wikipedia link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFnet

As a 1994-onwards IRCer, I actually had no understanding of where the term EFNet came from, and I don't really remember the US vs Europe/Japan/Australia "Great Split" of 96. I'm sure I was THERE, but I mostly frequented regional (okay #seattle and #pugetsound) channels so it wasn't particularly relevant to me.

A few things hit me like a ton of bricks. At the time, IRC seemed unimaginably vast; I remember netsplits were "unavoidable" once the active user count got above 10,000, and the Wikipedia article says there are ~35,000 active users now.

What didn't dawn on my until just now is that I must have known well over 100 IRCers even from just frequenting those regional forums, but because of how bad we are at conceptualizing large numbers, it never occurred to me that I must have known >1% of ALL OF THE IRC USERS ON THE PLANET at the time. Mind blowing.

Post reply on HN