MyAtari magazine : AtariIRC and AtariICQ

Everybody uses e-mail and most people will have used Usenet newsgroups. These are the technologies that have changed our way of life and made our global village a smaller place. Yet they have one major limitation - they are not real-time. Sometimes the best discussions are "around the dinner table" and this is where instant messaging, or internet chat comes in to play.

We are now entering the world of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and the newer proprietary instant messaging systems like ICQ from Mirabilis. I'm certain that once you have tried these systems you will wonder how you ever lived without them! So if you have not taken the plunge yet, read on and see you on-line!

Internet Relay Chat
Like everything on the internet, chat networks operate on a client/server basis. Users connect to a central server using client software on their computer that allows them to talk to other users connected to the same server. The whole scheme really comes to life when several servers are connected together in a network allowing users from all over the world to chat in real-time like neighbours over the garden fence!

The first such system and the prototype for all others, IRC, was developed by Jarkko Oikarinen in Finland in 1988 and since its inception has grown in popularity. There are several major networks - DALNet, EFNet and Undernet being the big ones - with Atari users tending to congregate on IRCNet.

People meet and mingle on channels, which are often incorrectly termed "chat rooms". The "official" definition of a channel is "a named group of one or more clients which will all receive messages addressed to that channel." This is the essence of IRC. Conversations are like those at a party where everyone present hears everything that everybody else is saying. Of course two or more users can always sneak off to a quiet corner to hold a private conversation using the direct client connection (DCC) protocol!

One slight technical problem which sometimes arises due to the network architecture: IRC's linear network may at times due to high internet traffic result in the appropriately named "netsplit" phenomenon, where two groups of users end up cut off in the middle of a conversation. If when chatting you suddenly receive a message that several users have suddenly disconnected you can assume that this has happened, but the servers will continually try to connect and soon fix the problem.

ICQ
Instant messaging has swept through the computing world in a craze only comparable to the European SMS phenomenon. The principle is simple: on connection to the server you are informed if any of your friends are on-line. If they are you can chat away to your heart's content!

Mirabilis' ICQ is probably the best known such system. For those of you who are wondering, "ICQ" is not yet another TLA (three-letter acronym!) but intended to be pronounced as-is: I seek you. The protocol is well documented, there being ICQ clients on almost every platform, and thanks to the heroic efforts of Dan Ackerman and Joakim Hogberg, we are not left out.

The idea may seem the same but the structure of the IRC and ICQ networks are quite different. While IRC is a linear network the ICQ network has one group of central servers at Mirabilis to which all users are connected.

Figure 1: Comparison of the IRC and ICQ networks. Because of the IRC serial layout, network split may occur where computers 1-3 and 4-5 may end up effectively being separate networks.

The major downside to ICQ is that being a proprietary format, it is prone to change as has happened recently with Mirabilis adopting a slightly different protocol. The result is that we, using third-party clients, will be left behind until details of the updated protocol are released. The other disadvantage is the intense competition in this field with the appearance of multiple incompatible clients such as AOL Instant Messenger and Microsoft's offering to name just two.

Nevertheless, ICQ is almost idiot-proof, being very easy to set up and use and uses minimal system resources. It sits idly in the background until someone sends you a message only then springing to life to let you chat!

We are very lucky to have dedicated software authors who have provided us with two wonderful pieces of software to make use of these technologies.

ICQ on Atari
mICQ was the first client to appear on the Atari platform and is a text-only port of a freely-available Linux clone of Mirabilis' offering. Within a year of mICQ's appearance, Joakim Hogberg took up the challenge of creating a graphical user interface for it. Soon collaboration arose and AtarICQ appeared, a completely new client written from the ground up. AtarICQ has two components: the graphical user interface which is a shell for an overlay: the part which communicates with the Mirabilis server.

Set-up is really simple and the only system requirement is a working STiK or compatible internet connection.

Every ICQ user has a UIN or user identification number. The first time you start AtarICQ a new account will be created for you. Simply choose an imaginative nickname and you will be assigned a UIN. The next step is to try to track down some people to chat with. If you know your friends are on ICQ you can search the Mirabilis database. AtarICQ simplifies this with its built-in search feature.

Your contacts are listed in the contact list window. To send a message to someone, just click on their name and type into the lower part of the message window. When you press [Return] the message will be sent and appear on their screen if they are on-line. A great feature of ICQ is the ability to send off-line messages. Even if someone is not on-line, you can still send them a message which they will receive the next time they connect. Any messages you receive will appear in the upper half of the message window.

Right-clicking on a contact's name will open a pop-up menu where you can access some of the more interesting features like sending URLs and indeed contacts to other people.

And of course an important feature of ICQ is the ability to set your "on-line status". The button on the bottom-right of the contact list window opens a pop-up menu which allows you to select from a whole series of status options. Most useful is "invisible" which means you will only appear as on-line to contacts whom you chose to allow to see you. Great to hold an important discussion with a few people without all your friends barraging you with requests for gossip!

Available as a separate download is aICQLoad, which is a tiny program, designed to run when you connect to the internet. It automatically loads AtarICQ or sets your status to "on-line" when you dial up.

IRC on Atari
Our very own IRC client AtarIRC is written by Lonny Pursell and really gives comparable clients on other platforms a good run for their money. All the major features are present including DCC and file transfer.

Set-up is a little more complicated than for ICQ but is worth the effort. After installation you will need to open the set-up dialog by pressing [Help]. From there you can configure your contact information, including nickname, and of course you must enter a server. As I mentioned, to find the Atarians you should probably stick to IRCNet. Start with eu.ircnet.org on a port of 6667 - this will randomly chose one of the EU IRCNet servers.

IRC is mainly a command-driven system, but thankfully there are just a few you need to learn, and AtarIRC has them all available from a series of pop-up menus at the bottom of the screen. After connecting to a server, you need to join a channel to become part of the discussions. All channel names on IRC are preceded by the hash ("#") symbol, so to begin just type:

You can also join the #AtariScne channel. Once part of a channel, everything you type into the command portion of the window will appear on everybody else's screen as soon as you press [Return]. In the very bottom of the screen, AtarIRC will list the nicknames of everybody else on this channel. If you want to direct a message just to one user use the command:

Direct Client Connection is a nice feature of IRC where two users connect directly together, independent of the IRC server, to chat in private. Just like opening your own channel between your two clients. And using file transfer you can send people files over the IRC network without resorting to email and all the delays that causes.

Here's a feature that is sure to have your non Atari-owning friends rather impressed! If AtarIRC and AtarICQ are running simultaneously, interesting things happen. Using AtarICQ, if IRC is minimised or hidden, any messages send directly to you using the /msg command will appear in the ICQ message window! This also works the other way round if you are using IRC with ICQ minimised! So you can have the best of both worlds, at the same time!