by Gaelyne R. Gasson

Web published with permission of Go64!/Commodore World.

The Internet is full of ways to communicate with people. For instance, you can communicate with lots of people by having a web page. Email is great for sending messages whether a person is online or not, but it's not usually very instant, as even when two people are online at the same time Email between them can be delayed by mail servers in between them. IRC (Internet Relay Chat) can be used as it allows conversations in "real time", but it can sometimes seem very daunting to use and not always easy to find a common meeting "channel" for conversing with others.

ICQ is a personal means of communication that allows you to have individual conversations. It was designed (for Windows and Mac users) to be used whenever on line. When others who also use the utility get on line, it shows their on line status. This way, you'd know Uncle Bob is on line even when you may be thousands of miles away. And of course you can have a nice chat with him and find out how the family is, share recipes, commiserate about the weather and have any other type conversation you'd have with him, except that you'd be typing your responses rather than speaking.

The ability to have quick one-to-one conversations is very useful. My brother-in-law used it recently to let us know he and his family arrived home (in another state) safely after visiting us. Another relative uses it to check if we're home before popping in for a visit. If I have a quick question to ask someone and I know they have ICQ, I'll usually ask while they're on line rather than asking in Email and ploughing through a mountain of junk mail before finding their response.

How can we use ICQ? If you have a shell account, you too can make use of it and use it as a means of contact when you're online. There are quite a few Unix based ICQ clones, but the majority are for those using Xwindows (a graphical interface similar to Wheels or GEOS). One of the best text based programs is called "Micq" for 'Matt's ICQ Clone'. It has the majority of useful features found in Mirabilis' ICQ program and it should compile on nearly any Unix or Win32 platform. You may find Micq already installed on your ISP. To see if it's online, from the command line, type: 'which micq'. If you get a response similar to "/usr/local/bin/micq" appears, you're in luck. If it doesn't, you can ask your system administrator to install it, or because it is a very basic program, you may be able to compile and install it in your home directory for your personal use. The current version can be downloaded from ftp://micq.chatzone.org/pub/micq/.

Getting Started

Using Micq is fairly straight forward but you'll need to know what a UIN is before going further. Every user is given a UIN (Universal Internet Number) to use, and basically this is you're ID number for using ICQ and ICQ clone programs. As we don't think of ourselves as numbers, a nickname is also used to associate a name with the number. For instance, my nickname online is Gaelyne (original, eh?) and my UIN is 5069384. Another thing you'll need to know before hand is what password you want to use.

To start Micq, type "micq" on the command line. The program will ask: "Enter UIN or 0 for a new UIN:". If you've never used ICQ before, type "0", and you'll be prompted twice for a password (the second time is to verify that it's password you meant to use). It will request your UIN from the ICQ servers and you'll see something similar to this, but with actual numbers instead of the x's:

Your new UIN is xxxxxxxx! 
Matt's ICQ clone compiled on 12:38:16 
  Jul 16 1999
Version 0.4.1 Now with a new version 
  number.
Using intel byte ordering.
Login successful! UIN : xxxxxxxx
 IP : 139.130.137.106	00:15:08
============================================
xxxxxxxx: Your status is Online
============================================
Users offline: 
 Micq Author         	(Offline)
============================================
Users online: 
============================================
Micq> 

Giving Yourself a Nickname

So others will have a name to go with your UIN, type "update" and press return. You'll be prompted for your new nick name. It will then prompt for your first and last names, and your Email address. You can leave these blank if you like. Adding your Email address can help others find you online with a feature that's explained in more detail below. The next question is "Do you require Mirabilis users to request your authorization?" Mirabilis is the company that owns ICQ, and one of the features their software offers is the ability to not accept messages from users unless they've been authorised by you. Not all of the 3rd party clone ICQ programs have this option, but it can be useful if you don't want to get messages from total strangers. Answer "yes" or "no" to this prompt, and the information will be updated in your .micqrc file.

Your Contact List

At this point, your next step would be to add a few people to your contact list. The contact list appears above and starts off with just the author of the Micq program listed. When a user in your contact is online their nickname would appear under the "Users online" display. To find someone you know online, you can use the command: "search user@email.address". You'll see the "Micq>" prompt again, and in a few seconds it will either respond with the nickname and UIN matching the Email address, or it will tell you that the search is done and all users have been found (without showing the information as there isn't any to show). Once you have a friend's UIN, you need to tell the program to add it to your contact list. The command for this is "add uin nick". For instance, to add me to your list, you would type "add 5069384 Gaelyne". Micq will respond by showing your newly updated contact list:

Users offline: 
 Micq Author         	(off-line)
 Gaelyne                (off-line)
============================================
Users online: 
============================================
Micq> 

Even though someone is "off-line", they may be online, but marked as 'invisible'. You can send a message to a user even when they aren't online. If they are online, they will receive the message almost immediately, and if not, the next time they start their ICQ program, the message will be there waiting for them.

Sending Messages

To send a message, the quick way is to type "msg nick/Start typing your message here". For example to send a one line message to me, type: msg Gaelyne/Hi. I'm trying this Micq thing out.

Sometimes you might want to send a longer message. In some ways, this is even easier. Just type "msg nickname" and press return. It will tell you you're typing a message as the prompt will change to "msg>". When finished writing your message, type a period (".") on a line by itself. If you get halfway through typing your note and decide not to send it, type a hash ("#") on a line by itself to cancel.

You can type about 4 full 80 column lines of text, a 'limitation/feature' of ICQ itself (it's not intended for monologues). Once you reach this limit, Micq will automatically send your message. This means your last line of prose may not be sent, so it's best to stick with 4 lines. One of the most useful features of Micq is that cursoring up will cycle through lines you've typed. This way you can send the same command or message line again with minor changes.

Naturally, there are times when you just don't feel like chatting, and there are features you can use to set your online status (away, do not disturb, occupied, etc.). You can even set it so you always appear as offline to certain people (or everyone) but show up as online for people that you want to communicate with. The commands to change your status are listed in the side bar.

New Files and Directories

The first time you use Micq, it creates a new file in your home directory named ".micqrc". This is your configuration file that you can change some of the defaults the program uses. The next time you use the program, it will automatically connect with your UIN and password, as this information is stored in the .micqrc file. For this reason, it's a bad idea to use you the same password as you use for your ISP.

Micq keeps a log file of your conversations in the .micq.logs directory. The log files are listed by the UIN of the person you've chatted with. Knowing where the log files are can be useful for double checking information, especially if someone told you about a web site or gave you information you want to see again.

The Rumour Mill

One of the annoying things about ICQ is that some people (including friends and family members) truly need to get a clue. Have you ever heard a juicy rumour and immediately phoned a friend to tell them? Imagine that instead of phoning ONE friend you could send all 10,000 of your friends the same rumour with just a few key presses? This happens everyday with ICQ. People that I would have thought knew better send me messages like "Don't accept messages from Joe Blow, he's bad news. Pass this on to everyone on your contact list." Chances are, the person who sent me the message don't even know Joe Blow. The rumour problem has got so serious that ICQ actually has a web page devoted to it at http://www.icq.com/support/rumors.html and another useful resource is http://diamond-back.com/icqlies.html. Another annoying habit well meaning people have are sending URLs (web page addresses) of every cute web page they run into. One well meaning fellow sends me at least three a day.

It's not all that bad though. I use ICQ to be able to offer immediate online support and for this, it does the job well. The annoyances of a few people sending me rumours and web pages really doesn't detract from the usefulness of the utility. Some people really enjoy it to the extent that there are now ICQ groups covering just about every topic under the sun. Mirabilis has a web site at http://www.mirabilis.com devoted to the ICQ network that you might find useful in finding friends, family and people of like mind.

ICQ All or Some of the Time?

When we use Micq we need to make the choice of whether to have it running the whole time we're online or starting it every once in awhile to see if any friends or contacts are online or to send a quick note to someone. To have it all the time you're online, you'll need to learn to use a few new keystrokes to put it in the background while you do other things like read mail and such. If you receive any messages, Micq will show them to you on the screen.

To set it up, once you've started Micq, press CTRL-z to suspend it. You'll see your normal Unix shell prompt. Now type "bg" (for "background") and press return. What this does is let the system know that you didn't really want to suspend Micq, you want to let it continue to run, but in the background. Now you can read your mail or do other things and other people using ICQ will know that you're online. When you want to return to Micq again, type "fg" (for "foreground") to bring it back. Use the same CTRL-z and then "bg|" sequence to send it to the background again.

After a few minutes of inactivity, Micq will automatically set your status to "Away". This is ok, as you still appear as being online, but other ICQ users would know you're busy doing other things. This text will appear on your command line, it looks as though you're within the program, but if you just press return you'll see your normal command prompt. Any messages you receive are also displayed on the command line while the program is in the background too. Pressing return will bring the command prompt back. There are times when the ICQ server restarts itself, and under this condition, the message that Micq displays is "Server sent "Go Away!" command. Most ICQ programs reconnect, but unfortunately Micq isn't one of these. In this case, simply restart the program.

Wrap Up

Believe it or not, I'm really not all that keen on chatting, even though I've found ICQ to be very useful when online. One of the things I like about ICQ though is the ability to see if family is online, and it's nice for when you really only want to say hello or ask a quick question, or in the case of some people I know, sending virtual hugs and kisses. It's quick, it's not too difficult to use, and it helps me stay in touch with friends and family all around the world in "real time" (unlike Email, which has delays). I hope you give this new world a try and see how you enjoy it. The good news is that when SLIP/PPP becomes available, our own Commodore ICQ clone will likely be available too.

Miribilis, ICQ, and, THE ICQ NETWORK are Trademarks and/or Servicemarks of Mirabilis. Micq and its author are in no way affiliated with ICQ or Mirabilis.

Gaelyne Gasson is the author of The Internet for Commodore C64/128 Users and spends her days as co-system administrator for VCSWEB.