I am sure IRC was good for some people, but I can say for me personally it was a net negative and real life was so, so much better. I wish I never used IRC.
I also personally witnessed multiple friends who dropped out of college due to IRC addiction in the early 1990s.
I am curious if anyone else has a similar memory of IRC.
> I also personally witnessed multiple friends who dropped out of college due to IRC addiction in the early 1990s.
I think there's always a segment of any population that will get addicted to anything, to the point of dropping family, friends, school, or work. Blame it on culture, nurture, genetics, unfulfillment, or simply lack of self control, but it always happens.
Blaming IRC, which is a pretty neutral outlet, is unfair. This is specially true today, as we have things designed and constantly honed to be as addictive as possible.
QuakeNet in the 90s, I don't know what to say, thank you? It was high school for me, like, I got through high school, got into computers in high school, have great memories of that time: because of QuakeNet in the 90s. hackernews community is the closest things I've felt to that since then, but it's pretty hard to beat QuakenNet in the 90s.
Depends a lot on where you were growing up, and what kind of community surrounded you. For me IRC and the internet at large was a salvation, but the 90s in my country of origin were... interesting times. Being on the internet was much healthier and much less hazardous than most of the things real life focused people in my age group were doing back then.
There are people on IRC who I've maintained contact with for longer than anyone I can think of off the top of my head aside from family members. Many now through other channels (thanks to the Discord wrecking ball), though some still on IRC.
Hard to say how many intellectual rabbit holes I've gone down as a result.
I can say for sure life would have looked very, very different without it.
Even though I really like irc because I can get answers really quickly from helpful people but it's a net negative I have felt if you linger on and listen to people conversing. IRC is good for short help needs but if you spend lot of time then it's net negative. I feel for the helpful ppl on various irc channels who are there to help out of their own goodness. They must be having a lot of net negative
This made me feel so nostalgic. I haven’t heard the term "netsplit" in probably 25 years. It’s amazing how things that once seemed so important get relegated not just to history, but sometimes to total oblivion.
But with modern nickname and channel services (Nickserv and Chanserv, mostly), and the very small IRC userbase, they certainly aren't as impactful as they once were.
You could also send a specific string to a channel, which caused mIRC to log it to a file. Then a hyper-sensitive anti-virus would see it and quarantine mirc.exe :D
Probably EICAR. AV engines are only supposed to fire on EICAR when the file contains only magic string, but many are/were trigger happy and will alert if it appears anywhere.
It did indeed, though people used to hide their IP addresses through various means, and so CTCP was usually a sure fire winner.
Most cheap modems seemed to ignore the required 1 second (IIRC) delay. Well-heeled users who could afford U.S. Robotics et al were safe, winmodem users were not.
This made me really nostalgic about mIRC. I miss Dalnet. The colors of IRC. How fast and reliable it was. The rankings of members and trying to build credibility with the community to move up in the channel.
I don't get IRC - it seems to be antiquated unencrypted live group chats, with no usable clients. Group chats are useless for finding information and for communicating in between 10 ongoing conversations.
I am sure IRC was good for some people, but I can say for me personally it was a net negative and real life was so, so much better. I wish I never used IRC.
I also personally witnessed multiple friends who dropped out of college due to IRC addiction in the early 1990s.
I am curious if anyone else has a similar memory of IRC.
I met my wife on IRC and migrated to New Zealand as a result. Worked out pretty well for me/us, well over twenty years later.
> I also personally witnessed multiple friends who dropped out of college due to IRC addiction in the early 1990s.
I think there's always a segment of any population that will get addicted to anything, to the point of dropping family, friends, school, or work. Blame it on culture, nurture, genetics, unfulfillment, or simply lack of self control, but it always happens.
Blaming IRC, which is a pretty neutral outlet, is unfair. This is specially true today, as we have things designed and constantly honed to be as addictive as possible.
QuakeNet in the 90s, I don't know what to say, thank you? It was high school for me, like, I got through high school, got into computers in high school, have great memories of that time: because of QuakeNet in the 90s. hackernews community is the closest things I've felt to that since then, but it's pretty hard to beat QuakenNet in the 90s.
Depends a lot on where you were growing up, and what kind of community surrounded you. For me IRC and the internet at large was a salvation, but the 90s in my country of origin were... interesting times. Being on the internet was much healthier and much less hazardous than most of the things real life focused people in my age group were doing back then.
There are people on IRC who I've maintained contact with for longer than anyone I can think of off the top of my head aside from family members. Many now through other channels (thanks to the Discord wrecking ball), though some still on IRC.
Hard to say how many intellectual rabbit holes I've gone down as a result.
I can say for sure life would have looked very, very different without it.
Perhaps it was the experience of irc which led you to appreciate real life so much more when you finally did engage in it
> irc addiction
How quaint
Touched a nerve I guess.
Care to elaborate?
I also knew people who had MUD addictions.
These were very similar to how in later years people became addicted to Second Life or EverQuest and essentially dropped out of society.
I don't know if there is a modern-day equivalent, to be honest.
League of legends and the likes today
Discord addicts?
Even though I really like irc because I can get answers really quickly from helpful people but it's a net negative I have felt if you linger on and listen to people conversing. IRC is good for short help needs but if you spend lot of time then it's net negative. I feel for the helpful ppl on various irc channels who are there to help out of their own goodness. They must be having a lot of net negative
Most of the real life friends that I still have today I met on IRC.
can't ride a netsplit to takeover and +m a huge channel IRL
This made me feel so nostalgic. I haven’t heard the term "netsplit" in probably 25 years. It’s amazing how things that once seemed so important get relegated not just to history, but sometimes to total oblivion.
Well, almost. Apparently, it has its own wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netsplit
I still see the occasional netsplit.
But with modern nickname and channel services (Nickserv and Chanserv, mostly), and the very small IRC userbase, they certainly aren't as impactful as they once were.
Or CTCP PING users with cheap modems with +++ATH0
You could also send a specific string to a channel, which caused mIRC to log it to a file. Then a hyper-sensitive anti-virus would see it and quarantine mirc.exe :D
Probably EICAR. AV engines are only supposed to fire on EICAR when the file contains only magic string, but many are/were trigger happy and will alert if it appears anywhere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EICAR_test_file
Also seemed to work over ICMP ping, with "+++ATH0M0DT112", they did not return to the channel.
I think it was some buggy Rockwell modem chips that did not require the delay between +++ and switching to command mode, but it has been some decades.
It did indeed, though people used to hide their IP addresses through various means, and so CTCP was usually a sure fire winner.
Most cheap modems seemed to ignore the required 1 second (IIRC) delay. Well-heeled users who could afford U.S. Robotics et al were safe, winmodem users were not.
damn right
This made me really nostalgic about mIRC. I miss Dalnet. The colors of IRC. How fast and reliable it was. The rankings of members and trying to build credibility with the community to move up in the channel.
Fun times.
What I don't miss is the plain text protocol. These days it would be a gold mine for tracking and surveillance.
I had the same feeling and I had the same experience on DALnet.
Related:
Why Real Life is better than IRC (2000)
https://everything2.com/node/e2node/Why%20Real%20Life%20is%2...
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46559266)
Missing "(2000)" in the title.
And also a (dupe):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46559266
Isn’t this the opposite of the other one?
whoops, you're right! (on day 9 of dealing with the super-flu, here)
I don't get IRC - it seems to be antiquated unencrypted live group chats, with no usable clients. Group chats are useless for finding information and for communicating in between 10 ongoing conversations.
Web forums make sense and are searchable.
IRC gives quick reply to whatever your queries are. In my extremely limited time on IRC, I have found very helpful and very prompt people.