[ih] Chat room and forum archives

[Jorge Amodio]

Internet Relay Chat (aka IRC) was released in 1988... there were a couple
networks of servers like EFnet, Undernet, IRCnet, etc, and a handful of
servers on each network with a multi-channel (sort of chat room) multi
participant distributed chat protocol.

You had the option to have 1:1 conversation but most of the activity was on
#channels you joined and chatted with others on that channel.

Some networks are still active and you can download desktop clients or use
some web based clients.

-J




On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 6:41 PM Dave Crocker via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> On 8/31/2022 3:53 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
> > a character haunting the
> > chat rooms and forums on investing, around 1995 and on
>
> So, this was just as the Internet went mass-market.  Web coming into its
> own.  No social networking yet.
>
> There was 1:1 chat going back forever on many systems, but 1:many group
> venues were, I think, still only in specialized teleconferencing
> systems, dating from the gas crisis in 1972. Enterprise tool, not
> mass-market.
>
> The closest would be public discussion lists via email or, of course,
> Usenet.  I'm not sure, but I think by the 1995 timeframe, the latter had
> become established as, shall we say, mostly noise...
>
> d/
>
> --
> Dave Crocker
> Brandenburg InternetWorking
> bbiw.net
>
> --
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>