Textce presents
Celebrity interviews, gaming communities, open-source development and independent communities around the world.
Internet Relay Chat · 1988
Internet Relay Chat was created in 1988 as an open protocol for real-time communication. Over the decades, people have used IRC to meet strangers, follow breaking events, talk with celebrities, build software, organize teams, exchange ideas and create communities of their own.
IRC was never one company or one application. Networks, servers, clients and communities could be independently operated, giving people an unusually open foundation for real-time conversation.
Chapter one
A protocol is born, and the first big stories find it.
Jarkko Oikarinen creates IRC at the University of Oulu, Finland, developing it as a replacement and extension for the campus BBS's MUT chat system.
Michael Sandrof's ircII becomes an important early Unix IRC client and helps establish client-side features including IRC file transfers such as DCC.
A dispute surrounding the open eris.berkeley.edu server leads most operators to form the Eris-Free Network, or EFnet, establishing one of IRC's first major independent networks.
During the Gulf War, people use IRC to exchange information and discuss events in real time, demonstrating the Internet's emerging ability to support live global conversation.
During the attempted Soviet coup, IRC becomes one of the Internet's real-time discussion channels for people following events during a period of severe restrictions on conventional reporting.
Chapter two
Clients, networks and services turn IRC into a place for everyone.
Created in October 1992 as an experimental network, Undernet aims to be less bandwidth-hungry and less chaotic as netsplits and takeovers begin to plague EFnet. It grows into one of IRC's largest and oldest networks.
RFC 1459 documents the Internet Relay Chat protocol for the Internet community, while Robey Pointer creates Eggdrop, an IRC bot that remains in active development decades later.
DALnet is founded in July 1994 and begins developing IRC services that would make registered identities and protected channels practical for everyday users.
Xabier Vazquez Gallardo, known as XaBi, writes XDCC as an ircII script to make DCC commands less tedious. Instead of manual file sending, bots offer numbered packs with queue.
Khaled Mardam-Bey releases the first public version of mIRC on February 28, making IRC dramatically more approachable for Windows users.
DALnet introduces ChanServ in January and NickServ in March, giving IRC users persistent nicknames and registered channels.
A major Michael Jackson online interview is distributed across AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy and IRC, with MTV involved in the event and its surrounding broadcast coverage.
EFnet divides into EFnet and IRCnet after disagreements involving IRC operator policy and technical approaches to preventing nickname collisions.
Chapter three
Millions of people. Hundreds of thousands on one network.
QuakeNet launches as a gaming-focused IRC network, helping establish IRC as a meeting place for clans, competitive players, tournaments and gaming communities.
By the late 1990s, IRC has become a global communications platform with millions of users spread across numerous independently operated networks.
irssi begins development in January and X-Chat 1.0 is released in June, giving Unix and Linux users increasingly capable graphical and text-based IRC clients.
During the investigation into the attacks associated with Mafiaboy, investigators obtain IRC logs in which a user identifying as “mafiaboy” bragged about attacks on major websites.
Major networks including QuakeNet, EFnet, IRCnet, Undernet and DALnet serve enormous communities, while IRC becomes deeply embedded in gaming, software development and Internet culture.
Developers across Linux, BSD and open-source projects use IRC channels as everyday places to solve problems, coordinate development and help new users.
IRC becomes a familiar home for competitive gaming teams, clans and tournament organizers, connecting players before, between and after matches.
QuakeNet reaches hundreds of thousands of simultaneous users during its peak years, demonstrating the extraordinary scale IRC networks could support.
Programmers, system administrators and open-source communities continue using IRC for live technical collaboration and support across the Internet.
Chapter four
IRC steps into music, news, activism and the browser.
Swedish musician Basshunter turns an experience involving an IRC channel, mIRC and a bot named Anna into the international dance hit Boten Anna.
Mibbit debuts in November 2007, a web-based client that lets people join IRC without installing anything.
PDPC Limited, the organization behind Freenode, is incorporated in the United Kingdom, giving one of IRC's largest open-source networks a formal structure.
Starting with Firefox 3.5, Mibbit is the IRC application set up by default in the browser, putting IRC one click away for Firefox users.
Anonymous participants use IRC channels to coordinate Operation Payback, making IRC a visible part of one of the most widely reported Internet activism campaigns of the era.
During Egypt's Internet shutdown, Telecomix uses IRC as a coordination hub for volunteers providing technical assistance and alternative connectivity information.
Volunteer-run networks keep their doors open, and new clients and web gateways make it easier for newcomers to join the conversation.
A protocol created at the University of Oulu in 1988 reaches its twenty-fifth year, still running on independent networks around the world.
Chapter five
New protocols and apps arrive, and IRC keeps its place as an open standard.
A new open chat protocol, Matrix, debuts in September 2014. It later gains an official IRC bridge that connects its rooms with IRC channels.
Freenode, one of the largest IRC networks for open-source projects, is bridged to Matrix through matrix.org.
A standardization effort run by the IRCv3 working group focuses on more advanced client features, building on the protocol that came before.
Andrew Lee acquires ownership of Freenode Limited, a change that would shape the network's future.
Three decades after its creation, IRC celebrates its thirtieth year, still independent of any single company.
Developers, hobbyists and gaming groups keep choosing independent IRC networks, each run by volunteers and each free to set its own rules.
Any client can talk to any network that speaks IRC, so conversations never depend on a single app or a single company.
Chapter six
Volunteers rebuild a network, chat keeps going, and Textce arrives.
Following a major governance dispute at Freenode, much of its volunteer staff leaves and launches Libera.Chat as a new IRC network focused on free and open-source communities.
Independent IRC networks and communities continue operating across the Internet, with users free to choose among servers, networks and clients.
IRC continues to provide a simple, interoperable foundation for real-time conversation without requiring communities to use one proprietary client.
Developers, technical communities, gaming groups and independent users continue building conversations around IRC networks and IRC-compatible software.
IRC approaches its fortieth anniversary while retaining the same fundamental idea: people should be able to communicate directly through an open, interoperable protocol.
A modern client for the open IRC protocol arrives, bringing the simplicity of IRC to a new generation across all devices.
Get TextcePresent
IRC has spent decades connecting people. Textce gives that idea a modern face, bringing the simplicity and openness of IRC to a new generation of users discovering Internet Relay Chat for the first time.
Built for modern devices while staying connected to the communities that made IRC what it is, Textce combines a clean, familiar interface with the features today's users expect from a chat application.
IRCv3, SASL, themes, notifications, auto-completion, modern chat controls and the features you need for today's networks.
Connect to the IRC networks people have been using for decades. Your conversations aren't locked to a single Textce community.
Textce brings IRC to your devices with an interface designed for what people expect. Ready for today and next year.
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