Planet IRC isn’t for everyone. But if you think it’s a place you’d like to visit, you can find Mike Kear’s primer, filled with links to everything you’ll need to start chatting, at http://www.healey.com.au/~mkear/ircprimer.htm. It is absolutely dummy-proof, and you can download free versions of IRC client software (the program you need to get into IRC) through the links here. Well-known IRC clients include mIRC and Pirch for Windows-based PCS, and IRCLE and Homer for Macs. Another excellent source of beginner’s info is Rosebud’s location, http://www.shocking.com/~quest/chat.html.

And don’t forget your helper applications - the software programs you’ll need to look at .jpg and .gif picture files, and to listen to .wav files. For the visuals, I have a nifty little program called ACDSee that I got from my cyberfriend Jarede in Chicago. One baffling afternoon, Jarede the angel sent me - through IRC, which can transmit and receive program files - a virus checker; a new version of mIRC; an audio application; a beta version of ACDSee for Windows ‘95, and a long .wav of a nasty Bryan Adams song. You’ll want to have a viewer of some sort, because folks in IRC like to send pictures back and forth, of themselves and the family and the dog and the cat.

Get your own photos scanned at Kinko’s, if you don’t have a scanner. Kinko’s will charge you $9.95 per photo if you let them do it, but if you are remotely computer literate, and do it yourself on their machines, it’ll only cost you $.30 a minute. You can scan a lot of photos very cheaply this way.

I use a little shareware program called Waveout 2.5 to play my .wav files, and yes, I got it from Jarede. .Wav files are little soundbites of practically anything you can imagine. In my WAVES directory, I have stuff like Beavis doing his Cornholio thing, Patsy Cline singing the first verse of “Sweet Dreams”, and ten seconds or so of an incredible banjo tune by Scott Vestal. I got them all from people in IRC. There are channels devoted to nothing but .wavs - notably, #wavcafe, #wavaddiction, and #mIRCwav. And if you have the proper equipment on your computer - a sound card and a microphone - you can even make your own .wavs. It’s a great opportunity for karaoke stars to croon tunes to perfect strangers all over the world!

Warning, though -- .wavs can be memory eaters, so keep an eye on your disk space, and store them on diskette if possible.

There are number of different chat networks, and they each have a score of different servers around the US or around the world. I use Undernet, because the sites I like happen to be on it. Others include EFnet, DALnet, Chatnet, and IRCnet. If you get on a server with a location outside the US, like one of the European Undernet servers, you’ll find a whole new group of channels, many of them in foreign languages. Speaking of which...

Learn the Language

Until you master IRCspeak, you’ll be spotted as a newbie - a wet-behind-the-ears, I Have-No-Brain-But-I-Must-Type greenhorn. Luckily, IRCspeak is easy to learn. Just remember the following rules:

1. Drop all punctuation. Almost nobody uses punctuation, unless it’s BIG. For example:

3. Sprinkle acros, emoticons, and pictograms liberally throughout your IRCprose.

Acros are acronyms that have evolved into a means of easy communication for IRC addicts, whose carpal tunnel syndrome and tendinitis prevent them from typing long strings of text comfortably. These include BTW (by the way), IMHO (in my humble opinion), BRB (be right back), LOL (laughing out loud), ROTFLOL (rolling on the floor laughing out loud), and ROTFLOLPMP (rolling on the floor laughing out loud peeing my pants).

Emoticons and pictograms are very similar to each other. This little mess of punctuation, for example, is an emoticon---> :-) It is the electronic equivalent of a smile. If you peer sideways at it, it looks eerily like a happy face. With a keyboard and a little imagination, and maybe a Scotch or two, you can create pictograms like this one of Elvis:

4. Learn to tolerate ASCII art.

With a keyboard and a LOT of Scotch, you can create ASCII art. ASCII artists are a rare and terrifying breed, and ASCII art, to me, is the electronic equivalent of Last Supper paintings on black velvet. Imagine the Mona Lisa rendered entirely in tildes and semi-colons. This is the kind of stuff that appeals to folks with pink flamingos on their front lawn and little crocheted poodles on the extra toilet paper rolls. There are numerous websites and channels devoted to the medium. Knock yerself out!

5. Understand the mysteries of PING.

Heh. . . Gotta leave you something to discover on your own, right?

I’ll share more about my adventures on Planet IRC in future columns, and I’d love to hear from you about your own experiences. Grab your gravity boots, your protein pills, and your tube of turkey a la king, and come to Planet IRC! And remember this, fearless reader, when you enter your orbit: you are in the future when you are here. May the foIRCe be with u!!!!!!!!

Caroline Wright, of WRIGHT FOR YOU Word Services, is a freelance writer. A former resident of Hawaii, she now lives in rural South Carolina. Feel free to e-mail your comments to Caroline at cw@wrightforyou.com.