Internet Relay Chat -- #ieee

My vocabulary of electronic communications terms is forever expanding. Here is a new addition: #ieee. This is a different kind of electronic discussion group. It does not use majordomo, which has been the subject of several recent issues of this column, but it is a form of e-mail messaging.

First of all, my thanks to Oliver Keitmann, who is an engineering student at the Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany. Oliver is currently the vice chair of the IEEE student branch at Bochum as well as the manager of channel #ieee. Oliver sent me an e-mail message suggesting the topic of IRC (Internet Relay Chat). He very kindly sent me additional information upon which this column is based.

CHANNEL #IEEE is organized by the IEEE student branch at Bochum and is designed for the interchange of news from student branches around the world. The URL (uniform resource locator) for the home page for channel #ieee is http://www.lwe.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/ieee/chann_e.htm. This page includes a list of regular channel users from Germany, England and Panama. This page also links to the IEEE home page, as well as the Bochum student branch and Oliver's home pages, which have both German and English versions.

I quote from Oliver's messages to me, so you can learn about IRC from a person who has set up one of these channels and is currently using it:

"INTERNET RELAY CHAT (IRC) is a kind of on-line discussion on some servers. The first idea was to use 'talk.' But you can only talk to one other person at a time. From this dilemma, IRC was designed. On IRC, you can talk live to as many people as you want -- all over the world. It is a kind of telephone conference via the Internet. The best way to suggest what IRC is, is to mention you are in a big room with other people. This room represents the so-called channel. You can talk to all of the people in the room (the normal behavior on IRC) or talk secretly to one special person (talk-like, also possible on IRC). You can even make file transfers by 'dcc,' but I didn't try yet.

"The organization of the IRC is that there are linked servers, which build a net, e.g., the EFNet, the Undernet. On these servers are channels available (from each linked server), in which the discussion takes place. Here is an example:

"We (student branch Bochum) organized the channel #ieee ('#' stands for a global channel, '&' for a local one). We have chosen the Undernet because it is more stable than the EFNet. Now every person with Internet access and an IRC client can join the Undernet, then the channel #ieee, and get in live contact with other student branches from all over the world. Examples for contacts: Passau (Germany), Sri Lanka, Panama, England, USA, Malaysia. Our core times are Thursdays from 1500 to 2200 MET (GMT + two hours). Then there is normally one of us on line; at other times there may be someone else on line.

IRC COMMANDS.   "The most common commands are:
    /server xxx -- Change to the specified server (/join us.undernet.org)
    /join xxx -- Join the specified channel (/join #ieee)
    /who * -- Checking who is on the channel
    /quit -- Quit the connection

"For further information, read the FAQs on the Undernet and IRC that are available, or contact me. If you like, we can meet on IRC as a test.
"Ciao, Oliver."

That is part of Oliver's message. He also included part of the FAQ, which I found very informative. I decided to look for the FAQ myself. I used the search engine Lycos ( www.lycos.com ) and entered the word "undernet". The first URL located was the "official home page" for the Undernet, but I could not link to it. The second URL was for Paul Grant's FAQ (part 1) on the Undernet (http://www.gibson.com/info/irc/faq.html).

This version is in seven parts:
    1.1 What is the undernet?
    1.2 Why does it exist?
    1.3 How do I get to it?
    1.4 How do I get help?
    1.5 Why is it so quiet?
    1.6 The future?
    1.7 Undernet Server List

Part 1.4 explains the help available on line using the /help command as well as listing the UseNet newsgroups "alt.irc.undernet" and "alt.irc.questions". Part 1.7 lists 15 servers in the USA, two in Canada, one in Mexico, 10 in Europe, and one in Australia.

GETTING STARTED.   You need client software, which you can obtain from anonymous FTP servers such as (for the PC Windows version) " ftp://cs-ftp.bu.edu/irc/clients/pc/windows/mirc ". You also need to connect to an IRC server such as "irc.bu.edu", "mickey.cc.utexas.edu", or "irc.mcgill.ca". (These sources are from the book described below.) I downloaded the software into a new directory. (It took 10 or 15 minutes.) I unzipped the file using pkunzip, and installed the program (mirc32.exe) using the "create a new shortcut" procedure in Windows 95. I then made my PPP connection to the Internet, and clicked on my new icon. I selected the server "us.undernet.org" and joined channel #ieee. Oliver was not connected at that time, so I will try again. Hey, it works!

ON-LINE DICTIONARY.   One of our members, Mitchell Shnier, has recently published a "Dictionary of PC Hardware and Data Communications Terms" (O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., April 1996). I thought it would be dull reading -- not so!

It is a great source of useful information and compact explanations of Internet-related terms. In late July, the on-line version of the dictionary, as well as some parts of the text, became available at "http://www.ora. com/reference/dictionary/". Try it, I think you will like it. Mitchell's home page URL is " http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Mitchell_Shnier ".

FROM THE WRITER.   This is my 35th article of a series which started in the Nov./Dec. 1992 issue of The Institute. I have missed only one issue -- last September's. That was due to a major fire in our home. After one year, we are finally wrapping up the major reconstruction.

Writing this column is fun and made much easier by help from our readers. We have all benefited from the experiences that many of you -- our loyal IEEE volunteers -- have contributed. The previous issue of this column was based on information contributed by one of IEEE's section volunteers. This month's title was triggered by one of our student members. If you have been involved in an electronic communications project that you think might be of interest to other IEEE members, please send me an e-mail message and tell me about it.