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»For the Amiga, there exist two IRC clients, the very advanced AmIRC (current version: 3.4) from Vapor and the also quite good, and most of all now freely available BlackIRC (v1.1). To say it beforehand: When it comes to features and overview, BlackIRC can't really keep up with AmIRC, but on the other hand, it is Freeware while the commercial competitor costs 40 DM.
After downloading BlackIRC (a quite small archive of 500kb) you can easily unpack and install it with the Amiga installer. The program supports/requires some additional MUI custom classes, which are listed in the (quite short) documentation and can be found in Aminet. Since BlackIRC is Freeware now, there no longer support for it - if you have problems, you don't need to mail the author, it is unlikely that you will get an answer. Further development has been stopped due to lack of time.
AmIRC needs a little more installation, because you have to get the 30 minute demo and the Update to version 3.4 (if not already in the first archive) from Vapors homepage, before you can add the keyfile, which of course has to be ordered first. (40 DM). But once installed, it also runs without problems and you will get, just like BlackIRC, to
Here you can enter different IRC servers and choose which one you want to visit today. Furthermore, you can enter such elementary things like nickname, real name and user name. This is almost identical with both client as this screenshot shows.
AmIRC offers a few more functions than BlackIRC (like the creation of groups, which helps to keep the overview). Insofar it can score a few extra points... but not many.
Both clients have extensive preferences to make them very configurable. BlackIRC has beside the basic IRC options (like user observation, ignore, CTCP flood protection, auto-rejoin etc.) also options for video conferencing. Of course this requires special hardware and will not be used by many, but is nevertheless worth mentioning, because AmIRC does offer this. Furthermore, you can define some buttons with certain IRC commands like Kick, Ban, etc. You can also define aliases and log sessions automatically or manually.
But AmIRC easily tops that. You can really say that AmIRC can do everything that BlackIRC (except video conferencing) and a lot more. Besides the features described for BlackIRC you can also define fonts and colors for the several chat windows, put often used sentences on the F-keys and adjust almost everything you can imagine.
Both clients support ARexx, so you can easily use scripts. You can find a quite large collection in Aminet, so you don't have to program everything yourself. You will find not as much scripts for BlackIRC as for AmIRC, because the latter is more wide-spread.
If you chat on different servers, in several channels, have some queries open and maybe even some other programs running, overview is essential. That's were BlackIRC is losing ground: All channels end up in the same window, and you can switch between them with a mouse click. This one windowed mode isn't necessarily a bad thing, but BlackIRC doesn't notify you (neither acoustically nor optically) when something happens in a currently hidden channel. Furthermore the mode isn't available for queries, so have to keep a window open for each query.
AmIRC on the other hand allows as many windows as you like, has a window list where you can open and close channels and queries, or alternatively a one windowed mode like BlackIRC. Even a mixture of both is possible, you can use only one window and remove channels or queries from it and run them in separate windows. The overview in AmIRC does not only beat its Amiga competitor, but also most common PC clients (like mIRC, HTIRC, pirch) as well. Here it scores a lot of extra points.
Without doubt, AmIRC is the better program. I can really recommend it to every regular chatter. If you only chat now and then, you can save the 40 DM for the keyfile and use the 30 minute demo or BlackIRC. But is apparent that both Amiga clients can easily prove themselves against most of their PC competitors. If ever took a look at the most common IRC client for Windows, mIRC, you will understand why most users of this system prefer HTML chats...
| BlackIRC: | 6 out of 10 points |
| AmIRC: | 8.5 out of 10 points |
You can download BlackIRC for free from http://www.innovative-web.de/. A demo version of AmIRC, which quits after 30 minutes and expires after 30 days, can be found on the Vapor homepage (http://www.vapor.co.uk). This demo version also includes informations on how to obtain the keyfile for 40 DM (approx. 20.41 Euros) via email or postage.
Finally I'd like to invite every IRC chatter to the channels #Amiga or #Amigafun on irc.germany.net, that's were I can be found often (usually with the nick "Numen"; everyday about 21.00 (MET)). Maybe we'll meet sometimes! :)
Numen Stahl <Numen@Freenet.de>«
