SCOUG-General Mailing List Archives

Date:	Sat, 17 Oct 1998 11:55:26 PDT
From:	Dave Watson <dwatson@deltanet.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-general@scoug.com
To:	scoug-general@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-General: Chat with Chicago

I'm talking to Chicago right now, from my office in Stanton, CA. You can too.
The VOICE network will be running a chat channel all weekend. SCOUG is hosting
interviews and wrapups at 6PM Saturday (Chicago time - CDT) and at 11:30 AM and
6 PM tomorrow. Hope you can join us. If you aren't familiar with Chat, please
see the introductory article below.
Dave
------------------
Can We Chat?

One of the many popular methods of communicating over the
Internet is Internet Relay Chat. It had its roots in the BBS era, and was
brought to the Internet from Finland in 1988. It quickly grew in
popularity, and today there are documented mental illnesses describing the
fascination some people acquire for this high-tech social outlet.

Chat is a text-based conferencing system where anyone can
connect to a system where people are discussing a topic, launch a
special program that handles the text messages, and read the
messages of the participants immediately or send immediate
messages to the group. Like verbal conversations, once a
statement is made, it soon scrolls off the screens of the
participants and is gone forever unless one of them is recording it. You
watch the discussion on your screen, and type in your own messages
whenever you feel like it. It's like a big party-line telephone system.
Details can be found in RFC 1459 at ds.internic.net.

OS/2 has a variety of programs you can use to join the chats. A
good place to start is the Center of the OS/2 Chat Universe, the
Virtual OS/2 International Consumer Education, or VOICE. They
are an organized club with dues-paying members and a newsletter,
which includes interviews with such luminaries as our own Randell
and Rollin. Their web site at www.os2voice.org has more
information, including an excellent tutorial on IRC in the September
issue.

You can link from VOICE to Judy's Warped World or go to Hobbes
or BMT Micro to download any of several programs available for
Warp, from simple text based shell programs to full graphical
programs with address books and help files and all the bells and
whistles you can imagine. There are even pure Java versions!
Download some and try them out.

Now, all you do is browse chat servers and find groups you like,
and chat with them. If you tire of them, say good bye and go do
something else. It's just about that simple. You need an address,
of course. You can find a listing on the web of the sites that carry
VOICE at www.suntrix.com/ibbs/server.html. One of the nearest ones is in
Washington -- enter irc.wa2.webbnet.org:6667 in your chat program.

There are also organized chat meetings. You already missed the
recent one featuring Randell and Rollin, but on October 5th at 5 PM
you can chat with Kim Rasmussen, author of the excellent "Swiss
army knife" of the Internet -- Internet Adventurer. And there is a
high probability of a lot of chat during Warpstock. Watch the
Internet SIG site (users.deltanet.com/users/dwatson/isig.html) or
the VOICE or Warpstock sites for details.

And remember, if you feel you are becoming adicted to this
faxcinating activity, check out the cyber counseling entries at
Yahoo!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Dave Watson dwatson@deltanet.com
Java Powered - J-Street Mailer

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Dave Watson dwatson@deltanet.com
Java Powered - J-Street Mailer

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