A Proper IRC client for GEOS on the Commodore 64 (last updated 2025-08-24)

In 2010, I wrote an IRC client for GEOS, but it was not a big success. It was written for the RR-Net, a horrible network card that requires running a TCP/IP stack on the Commodore 64, which is madness. I lost a year of my life writing it, and will never touch an RR-Net again as long as I live.

Later, after therapy from Wizard The Cat, I worked on a version for the Flyer, but abandoned it when the card unexpectedly went out of production. The curse was becoming apparent...

But in recent years, the Ultimate devices have appeared; first the cartridge and then the entire computer. Both provide Ethernet networking, and Scott Hutter has written a library in C, which I ported to 6502 for the geoGopher project, and adapted for this one. Recently, I've been having some success with it, and I'll provide updates and videos here as work progresses. The source code (exported ASCII) can be found on Codeberg.

There is still hope for a GEOS IRC client...

• 2025-08-18 This version had an interesting bug. We will speak no more of it.
• 2025-08-20 This version still has some obvious issues, but chat and privmsg are working and there were no explosions or magic smoke.
• 2025-08-24 This version tests the rendering of private messages in reverse video.