Internet chatting is not just a means of passing time or 'entertainment', but to a large number of IRC users, especially those living abroad, it has become the only tool that keeps them closely bonded with the community.

As of the well-known fact that the internet provides information, what most of us are not aware of is how good it is in terms of commutations. Of course, we have the messengers like MSN, Google and ICQ but these are for chatting with people we already know. Whereas most of us do not know anything about IRC or mIRC.

Never heard of it? Well, it is time you learnt.

IRC, Internet Relay Chat, first started in August of 1988, when Jarkko Oikarinen, an employee of the Department of Information Processing Science at the University of Oulu, had spare time in hand and tried to figure out a means of communication based on BBS (Bulletin Board System).

In November, IRC spread across the internet and by the middle of 1989 there were some 40 servers worldwide where users could log on.

To connect to an IRC server one must have an IRC client. mIRC is a shareware IRC client for Windows created in 1995 and developed by Khaled Mardam-Bey. Although it was originally designed for chatting only, mIRC has evolved into a highly configurable tool that can be used for many purposes. Programmers can use their scripts to make mIRC their client with their very own touches.

There were other clients before mIRC and there are still a few, but with time mIRC proved to be the most efficient, reliable and user-friendly one. To log on to any IRC server through mIRC, all you need to do is download mIRC, choose the network of servers you want to connect to, and join a channel. You can even join other servers that are not mentioned on the default list by typing, for example, "/server irc.dal.net". And you can join any channel of your choice by typing "/join #channelname" and talk.

Among all the network of servers one that exists today with a huge number of users is Dalnet, named after its founder Dalvenjah. He formed the network to provide better user services and even more user and channel protections. Much of Dalnet's new functions were written in early 1995 by Brian Smith, nicked "Morpher". His modifications allowed users to own their own nicknames, channels, send memos and more.

In January 1998, a guy known by his nick BlindCat registered a channel called #Bangladesh in Dalnet. It opened the gate for a new form of communication for Bangladeshis--not just for the people living in Bangladesh, but also for those who live abroad and miss their country and its people.

Later on, Bangladeshi young people started running their own Bangladeshi servers. Banglacafe (irc.banglacafe.com) and Bdchat(irc.bdchat.com) are popular and have a large number of users.

BanglaCafe was founded in October 1999 on Dalnet. It was just a room in the beginning, but a year later Alvi Sharif launched BanglaCafe on its own IRC server running from Chicago, USA.

Bdchat is owned by "Bigbro" and is currently quite popular among the Bangladeshi IRC users.

There is another server called irc.shopnerbangla.net founded by "anik_subnormal" on March 14, 2004.

Needless to say, most of the servers that shot up recently were founded by Dalnet users.

Rivalry between servers is very common and in most cases a user could be banned from a channel for just mentioning the name of another server.

There are a few limitations a server or a channel may impose on the users like the use of colour of the texts or abusive language.

"||Kach^poka||", a well-known nick in #Bangladesh on Dalnet said he has been in #Bangladesh since 1999 and met many people and made a lot of friends, even found a long lost school friend after 17 years.

||Kach^poka|| who now lives in the UK uses IRC to keep in touch with Bangladesh and its people. But he pointed out that of the many people in IRC some are not so good people. He said it is not a rosy picture all the way--there are bad people here who could hurt you emotionally or even cheat on you. Young users sometime get addicted to IRC which do not leave a good impact on their life, he added.

Sraboni, who goes by the nick CreEpe||a, is an operator of the channels #Bangladesh and #Deshi. In an interview on Dalnet, she said she studies art in Singapore and misses Bangladesh. To her, IRC is the only place where she can talk to Bangladeshi people and friends. She said chatting is something she does in her spare time and it helps her feel closer to home. "It helps me forget the problems that I might be having in real life," she said.

CreEpe||a said chatting should be considered a good entertainment and not taken too seriously.

There are people who tend to take things not so lightly and there are a number of people who even found love in IRC. Popular nicks "The-Eye" and "Prisita" got married recently who met each other on Dalnet even though one was living in Bangladesh while the other in Australia.

Thousands of people log onto their favourite channels everyday and chat away with people they cannot meet in person but can sure talk about ups and downs of their lives, shares their thoughts. They are always contributing to this ongoing effort to help develop an outstanding community that is closely bonded yet often oceans apart.