IRC: for when real friends are too stressful

It was late...later than the average person should be working on a paper on campaign advertising. I was getting tired, sloppy, and into my third pint of coffee, but I could not bring myself to work at the 10 pages I needed to write by the next afternoon. I couldn't do a thing to fight my urges as I opened up a Minerva session and typed three letters that are well known and often feared by many net-surfers: IRC.

IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. It consists of hundreds of groups of people "talking" on channels that cover virtually every topic. IRC channels are in real time, which means that as you see something pop up on the screen, whoever said it has just finished typing it onto their computer. You can have conversations with anyone as far as Australia or as close as the computer next to you.

Entering the IRC is as easy as typing "irc" at any Pantheon prompt. (Pantheon includes the Minerva, Mercury, and Morpheus computers.) This will put you on the chat through Yale's IRC server, giving you access to the channels on the IRC network. A cursory look at the channel list (which is difficult, since it is very long and tedious and scrolls by very fast) shows channels with subjects as diverse as Japan, the Grateful Dead, angst, and romance. You can join a channel by typing the /JOIN command. Since IRC channel names start with a pound sign, typing "/join #angst" will let you talk to people bitching about anything from their roommates to the meaninglessness of life. If a channel doesn't already exist with the name you entered, it will create one for you.

Each user on the IRC goes by a nickname, or "nick." Your nick will originally be your Pantheon login. You can change your on-screen nickname with the /NICK command. (Like all other IRC commands, /NICK starts with a slash.) Just type "/nick Steve" and your nickname will change instantaneously to "Steve."

Once on a channel, you'll see a scroll of what other people are saying to the channel. Below it will be an inverse-color line with the time of day, your nickname, and the channel you are on. The last line shows you what you're typing. When you type something and hit <enter>, it will show up on the screen with your name next to it (except on your own screen, where it will be preceded by only a right-arrow, or >.)

A few other commands that will be useful:

• "/ME blah blah blah" will show up as: * Steve blah blah blah or whatever your name is instead of Steve.
• "/WHO #channelname" will give you a list of all the users on the channel called #channelname. You will see each one's nick, e-mail address, and real name.
• "/MSG Philip talk talk talk" will send a message to a user named Philip that only Philip can see, as opposed to the entire channel. The content would be, in this case, "talk talk talk."
• "/WHOIS Angela" gives you information on a user called "Angela," such as real name, e-mail address, how long she has been on IRC, and what server she is logged in through.
• "/HELP" will bring up a screen of commands, and you can learn about each one by typing "/HELP" followed by the name of one of the commands.

That should be enough to get you started, and you can learn more as you go along. One warning, however. The story at the beginning is true, and the author knows many people (himself included) who use the IRC too much. IRC can be as addictive as Tetris, reading e-mail, or chocolate. So by all means have lots of fun, but be careful!

Ken Stern, CC '97, is a computing assistant.

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