IRCnet Home Page at ircnet.org

IRCnet History

There can be no single history of IRCnet, and any attempt to present one is probably just something of an ego trip on the part of the writer. An IRC network such as ours is made up of many individual groupings of servers that tend to stay together no matter what network they are on and the history the network may look very different to one group than it does to another.

An example of this is the discrepancy of the first servers on IRCnet. From my point of view, the first servers were Stealth and BT, followed shortly by Japan and then later joined by Europe; however if you read a history from the European perspective, you will read that they split away from EFnet to form IRCnet and that Stealth/BT and Japan joined them.

There is no "correct" version of the history, since both are true accounts but seen from different perspectives so what I have attempted to do is to collect a number of accounts from different angles and leave any interested reader to draw their own conclusions. Since I have collected and written some of this history you can expect a bit of bias, but if you object to this and you know what you are talking about then write your own and send it to me and I will include it.

Michael Lawrie, 20010713.

The creation of IRCnet:

Veggen's history from the European point of view. There is also another version here. Many people would argue that this is just a one sided history of the split since the view from Stealth/BT was entirely different however, it is interesting and worth a read.
Lorry's history of the #GB channel, contains what is probably the most accurate account of the split from the BT/Stealth point of view.

IRCnet operators through the ages - Some of us have just been doing this for too long!
Hopefully at some point we will get a more accurate contribution from Digital, Lorry, Kick, Outcaste, Yegg and Core.

Other IRCnet things of interest:

Who are the original Operators?
The transition of the EBIC to the BIC

Early IRC history:

In the beginning...
Parallels in MUD and early IRC History.
Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia! - eris.berkeley.edu
A list of servers at the end of 1992.
The Undernet.
The other IRC Networks.