All smacking in this chat or a brief history of communication on the Internet.

There were a couple of years before VKontakte appeared, Facebook was still an unknown overseas curiosity, and WhatsApp, Viber and Terlegram were out of the question. High-speed Internet was fantastic, and the connection was completely made through dial-up. If you remember this sound, you will surely recall the chats that started the era of network communication.

What is chat like?

Chat is a place for real-time computer network messaging. And this is the main difference between chats and forums, walls and comments: on the forum, your messages can be accessed as much as you like, but in the chat they will be visible only to those who are present in it.

Chat Background

The first computers were so expensive and bulky that no one even thought of spending their valuable time working on some kind of communication there. Only data processing, only serious mathematical calculations. Even APRANET, the ancestor of the modern Internet network, did not rectify the situation: the network consisted of only four interconnected computers. Only two years later did e-mail appear. New messaging services were not long in coming: mailing lists, message boards, newsgroups ... But all this was not right.

QHow did you communicate on the Internet before the era of social networks?

The Talcomatic program became the prototype of the chat, then the Freelancing Round table appeared, but the special protocol for chats - Internet Relay Chat, became very popular, at the same time the term "chat" was spread. The simplicity of the interface and the general friendly mood instantly made chat rooms a popular place to chat on the network. There is a version that messages about the putsch in the USSR were instantly distributed around the world through this chat. And on the basis of Internet Chat Relay a lot of bots were created that formed the basis of team online games. For example, the Mafia.

What are the chats?

From the point of view of software implementation, the following types of chats are distinguished.

Web chats. A web page that is updated at a certain interval, loading messages from users, which creates the illusion of online communication.

Chats on Adobe Flash. Special software allows you to send and receive messages without regular updates.

Local chats. It implies not only messaging on the local network, but also the transfer of large files.

Add-on chats. Such chats are implemented on the basis of third-party protocols, for example, on the basis of ICQ or QIP.

Scheme "Client-server". Such chats are available in client applications. For example, Jabber.

Anonymous chats. Each connection occurs with a new interlocutor, while users themselves do not even know who they are connecting to. Such chats, for example, include video chats with a slope of 18+.

Recently watched the transformation of chats in a new way on social networks. It turned out that chats can be arranged in ... Google Docs. The find turned out to be very convenient for students: you can chat with the whole group right on the pair, without going into social networks and without attracting the attention of the teacher. Indeed, such one-time chats look like a normal working document.

How did the chat go?

Chats may differ in design and interface, but the conversation page and the form for entering a message always remain their unchanged components. Many of these chats meant private rooms, when it was possible to send a message not to a common room, but to a specific interlocutor.

The chat communication algorithm was naively simple: registering without entering real data, entering by login and password, exchanging messages on a common page. The real spirit of freedom reigned in the chat rooms - you could remain anonymous or sit at once from several accounts, after meeting in the chat rooms arranged large and friendly virtualizations, made friends here and even found love.

In the chats, timid attempts at trolling were born, but in a warm tube conversation, an outsider, to everyone's joy, could frolic only until the first ban. There, the Albanian Yazig took root, and the chat regulars proudly called themselves Chatlans. By the way, the nicknames of those years looked like a separate subject of art - written in different registers, with alternating letters, numbers and even @ # $ symbols - they were a clear reason for acquaintance. In any case, when meeting the question “What does your nickname mean?” Sounded even more commonplace: “How are you?” Such nicknames have long been out of fashion, but the slang reduction that originated in chat rooms — priv, pokey, spocky, smack, oki — can still be found.

It is not surprising that chats were especially popular among teenagers searching for their love on the Web or simply teasing from boredom.

Appeared in 2001, the novel "Loneliness on the Net" by Janusz Vishnevsky in the wake of the popularity of chat rooms immediately became a cult and for a long time led the ratings of bestsellers.

Chats today

Chats ordered to live long with the spread of the first instant messengers and social networks. The phenomenon of network communication did not go away, but simply moved to new platforms with different rules. For example, social networks and instant messengers allow you to collect your chats, and on commercial sites there are built-in dies for communicating with managers on certain issues. True, some old sites still have bolted tabs with old chats or guest books. Either a good tradition, or nostalgia.