Irc is a client program that makes use of the service provided by ircsrv and provides a user interface for sending and receiving messages.

The command language understood by irc is as follows
/m     privmsg #chan/nick message
/M     mode #chan +nt
/j     join [ #chan ]
/p     part [ #chan ]
/q     send parameters raw to the server
/l     list [ #chan ]
/n     nick newnick
/N     notice #chan/nick message
/t     set [ victim ]
/T     topic [ #chan [ newtopic ]]
/W     whois nick
/w     who nick (a shorter whois)

The –c flag sets character set conversion using tcs(1), the –b flag causes the client to display the last n lines of the default target or conversations if no target is set. Without any arguments –b prints the conversation from the very beginning. The –t flag sets the default target to which the messages are sent by default if a line written to irc does not begin with /. Irc also prints messages to/from the target exclusively if one is set.

To use ircsrv started earlier on a cpu server
import $cpu /srv
import $cpu /tmp
irc

To start/see/continue a conversation with a specific target (can be #chan or nick)
irc –t #plan9
irc –t f2f

To run irc within acme start irc inside "win –e":
win –e
irc –t f2f