"Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
Albert Einstein
IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat and is a way of communicating across the WWW in real time. "Real time" means that you type in something and people see it on their screens within a few seconds. So you can pretty much have an instant written conversation with someone.
IRC is a really good way for groups of people across the world to "talk" to each other because there is generally no limit to the number of people that can be connected at any one time.
It will cost you the same as if you were surfing on the Net or sending emails - so if you are paying by the hour for Internet access you will also pay by the hour for IRC access; and if you're paying by megabyte downloaded you will be charged according to how much traffic there is on the IRC channel you link up to.
Introduction
I'm giving you sufficient information so that you understand the way IRC works. There is also a "step by step" set of instructions, in the summary section, which is probably best used after you have read through the whole report.
