Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is one of the oldest instant messaging systems. It's focused around topics rather than people, and requires no registration. We use it for a chat room (#grouppatterns at irc.freenode.net) for this project. You can participate by entering your name here (you may get a security warning; just tell it OK or to Continue):
For help figuring out how to use IRC, join the chat above if you can and ask. If that doesn't work, feel free to leave a question below, or check out some documentation yourself: http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/
There's downloadable IRC software for different systems. Some suggestions:
- Mac — Colloquy
- Windows — Pidgin, X-Chat 2, mIRC
- Linux — Pidgin, kvirc
- Cross-platform (requires Firefox) — Chatzilla
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