Short: IRC DNet client (dnetlib.o required) Architecture: m68k-amigaos --- Amiga IRC --- (DNET Version) Version 1.0 November 25, 1992 by Rick Kent Internet: rkent@sparc1.csubak.edu AOL: RickK32 INTRODUCTION ------------ What is IRC? IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. The original IRC was designed under Unix for use on the Internet. It allows people from all over the world to join in live discussion groups and talk to each other in a multi-user chat system. Since its conception, the popularity of IRC has grown tremendously. At present, there are usually hundreds of people online in IRC with well over a hundred live discussion groups. Although originally designed under Unix, there are now IRC clients written for other platforms as well such as the PC and Macintosh, but until now there was no client package for the Amiga. WHAT DO I NEED TO RUN IRC? -------------------------- To run this IRC client package you must have the following: - Workbench 2.0 (Version 37 or higher) - DNET Software (Originally designed by Matt Dillon): DNET is a serial network communications protocol which allows you to run a network connection between two Amiga's or an Amiga and a Unix station (similar to SLIP but less complex). - A Unix shell account which has direct access to the Internet (The Unix version of DNET must be installed on this machine). - The DNET INTERLINK module (included). - reqtools.library (included). Note: Reqtools is Copyright (c) Nico Francois. WHY DO I NEED DNET? ------------------- In order to connect to an IRC server machine on the Internet you must have some sort of Internet access. In a standard setup, to use IRC you would have to have your PC, Mac, Amiga, or whatever connected directly into the Internet. The number of Amiga machines with this kind of direct access is extrememely low. This is where DNET comes in. DNET allows you to start up a serial network connection between your Amiga and a Unix machine. If the Unix machine you connect to is on the Internet, then it becomes possible to access Internet services. Once the DNET INTERLINK module is installed on both the Amiga and Unix machine, then your Amiga has a psuedo-connection to the Internet. Properly written DNET clients can then open a BSD socket-like connection to any site on the Internet. Thus, the Amiga IRC client software simply opens a socket connection directly to an IRC server machine (of your choice) on the Internet. Note: Although this version requires DNET, there is a chance that I may design another version in the future that will use a standard TCP/IP connection. At this time however, I do not have access to an Amiga that is directly connected into the internet via TCP/IP.