Well, I've been thinking, and now that grex has Internet Access, trn,
and about everything else in the computing world I think it's about
time to get irc access.  I know I would be willing to pay an extra few
bucks a month for this service, any other comments?

53 responses total.

You'd better belive I'd pay extra for this!  I've had many people
I know on Usenet or mailing lists who wanted to "meet" me on IRC,
and I had to turn them down.

(As though I don't spend enough time on-line...)

Mayhap the extra funds should go to getting one or two extra
phone lines?

And perhaps a high baud rate modem?

ditto bjorn.

IRC is evil! However, if it leads to more phone lines (and larger 
parties), I guess I can take it.

Not to digress, or anything, but what is IRC?

IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat and it's a virtual CB radio.  Chat with
people from Norway to really exotic locations like California!

The only problem I see with getting IRC on Grex is that IRC tends
to be a really big time sink -- people can spend in excess of 4-6
hours at a time on IRC.  With the current modem situation, I
don't think Grex could handle the load on the dialins.

One possibility would be to restrict IRC use to, say, 1am-7am.
This would mean that people could use IRC during Grex's off-hours,
when there are frequently several free modems, but wouldn't tie
up the lines for hours on end during prime time.

That would mean, if others adopted the same policy, that you couldn't
chat with Norway, with a seven hour time difference.

really anything is fine, trying to teach myself raw irc is way achin!

Groovy.

   If we had infinate phone lines I'd say sure, add IRC.  Same for
a Grex MUD.  But time and time again, systems with those two services
on them get *swamped* with people doing just those two things.  Given
the experience of a lot of other places, I don't think we should unless
we come up with an innovative solution to the bandwidth problem.  If
a bunch of users came up with a donation of say $580 to fund three
phone lines for a year, that would probably be about the right amount
of support that IRC would eat up.  Maybe.  Then again it might even
eat up more than 3 full-time phone lines.  It also hogs Internet
bandwidth, but not quite so badly.

Ditto of Re # 10

It seems like IRC wouldn't be a good idea until we have a stable incoming
Internet link and can telnet to Grex from Merit, or somewhere else.  I
wouldn't want to tie up the dial-in lines when they're the only thing we
have.  But if we can come in from Merit, then it doesn't seem like a problem.

For IRC, call Innovative Concepts.

IRC should use very little Internet bandwidth.  Phone line time should be
the big problem.  So what about one tty that can be used for irc
so that irc users could fight over that line without much cost to the
rest of the system?

This item feels like it should be in coop.

Don't bring us IRC! There are plenty of other places to receive IRC if it's
really wanted! To bring in IRC would be to bring in a lot of users who don't
care much for Grex, but rather for its IRC access. No IRC!!!

Who's going to link this to coop?  Only 3 months left before spring! (sasf)

Thanks for the hint, Dave.  This item has been linked from Agora
to Co-op, item #63.

Thst' nice to know.

good.

I love one-word responses.






--- NOT!!! ---

I've been in parties on Grex that have lasted around seven hours...

I'd worry more about ftp bandwitdth than irc.
phone lines is an issue.

this item is linked from agora 24 to internet 6

(Don't forget coop 63.  ;-)

Ummm... two things... if i wanted to donate some hardware to grex .. like an
old 2400.. would that work.. can grex utilize commercial modems... and more
topical... presumably IRC would still only be usable by paying members of grex
that use the internet...? right?

The person to contact about donating the modem is Steve Andre, login
steve.

You are correct about the internet link, including the possibility
of running irc, being only available to members.

This response has been erased.

Yea...

ICnet you need to pay $20 for access.

For how long?

zgf ghm

For a month

Well, I just used one of the IRC servers to find out what it was
like, and all I can say is...

        That's it?

I think irc is one of those things you either really like or really
couldn't care less about.  I've used it in the past, and I never 
caught the bug.

A couple of years ago, I did it fairly intensively for a few months,
mainly for the on-line Botticelli game.  Lost interest in it after a
while.

Yeah, I prefer to use bbs and usenet, but it is nice to have irc sometimes..

the #initgame is cool!

but I can live without that for all the wasted resources that would have
to go into running a irc client...

heaven forbid that we even think about running an irc server!?! (shudder)

Welllllllll, I like irc 'n' I'm not in college yet!  What can a boy do?

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