Hacker Read

slobotron · 2019-01-23 21:53:27+00:00

Definitely at the very least ICQ had it - remember freaking out friends by replying to their questions before they even clicked send. This was late 90s...

pisky | karma 235 | avg karma 10.22 · | 2020-10-28 08:59:07+00:00

Icq's chat feature definitely did around 97/98/99. I remember it being different from the IM feature in that way.

dragontamer | karma 30240 | avg karma 2.84 · | 2015-11-02 14:06:08

Even in the late 90s when we had IRC, ICQ, and AIM for realtime chats.

coupdejarnac | karma 1027 | avg karma 1.91 · | 2019-01-23 21:56:10

I remember this being a feature of ICQ in 1998.

dxdm | karma 671 | avg karma 3.34 · | 2021-01-08 06:10:18+00:00

Yep. I remember using that on IRC and ICQ chat in the 90s.

richardknop | karma 2119 | avg karma 2.02 · | 2017-10-09 15:32:14

Is ICQ still a thing? I think that might be my first ever account, going into late 90s. Not sure if my first email account was before that or not.

thanatropism | karma 2775 | avg karma 1.69 · | 2019-07-02 01:14:10+00:00

ICQ had that feature.

v37p | karma 7 | avg karma 0.64 · | 2021-07-20 19:21:22

Didn't ICQ have this feature in the late 90s/early 2000s? I feel old saying that.

sakopov | karma 3730 | avg karma 4.18 · | 2016-03-15 14:50:00+00:00

ICQ was insanely popular in the US as well. I remember getting on it and chatting with my friends when i was a teenager in the late 90s.

linearrust | karma 107 | avg karma 0.63 · | 2024-05-24 17:27:55

ICQ was the primary tool for my friends and I to play games online ( quake, doom, starcraft, etc ). Not only with each other but people all around the world. Every time we joined a server our list of icq friends kept increasing. I still remembering coming home from school and immediately checking icq. The mid 90s to early 2000s was a real special time.

dools | karma 6250 | avg karma 2.61 · | 2023-05-22 19:30:51

I was on mIRC, ICQ and MSN all day with my friends in the late 90s-2000s so chat definitely existed!

floopidydoopidy | karma 14 | avg karma 0.21 · | 2016-09-21 06:57:29

I feel like ICQ 98 was the pinnacle of chat applications. Floating contacts and email style messages... brilliance.

sandos | karma 467 | avg karma 1.24 · | 2018-03-29 07:09:13

No, ICQ was the shit back then!

cjauvin | karma 1807 | avg karma 8.0 · | 2021-07-01 00:33:08

I think ICQ used to work like this too, and I remember how impressed by it I was.

walteweiss | karma 193 | avg karma 0.47 · | 2023-08-22 08:44:31

Yeah, it was irc or icq something, like 15 years ago :)

crucialfelix | karma 1633 | avg karma 1.98 · | 2021-01-24 10:07:00+00:00

Even back in 2000 we were using ICQ to chat with other developers sitting nearby. It was faster and less intrusive.

HenryBemis | karma 3106 | avg karma 1.65 · | 2020-03-07 15:19:50

So we didn't do this back in the day of ICQ? Or any IRC/telnet chats? Or emails?

autokad | karma 3339 | avg karma 1.86 · | 2018-02-02 21:57:28

yeah, the best parts of the internet in the late 90s was chats and messenger apps.

remember excite chat? i loved that, but mostly used irc.

messenger wise, started using icq but people (me included) hated remembering a huge number to log in. AIM was great though, and msn messenger was great because it tied right into your email too.

reply

ricardobeat | karma 18682 | avg karma 2.77 · | 2020-10-08 23:14:55

ICQ also had the 'real time typing' years earlier. It felt pretty normal at the time!

j79 | karma 797 | avg karma 3.71 · | 2019-01-23 21:54:46+00:00

I'm a bit older and also remember this as well. I would watch in real time when my friends would type something out, or call out their mistakes in typing. I believe you're right about it being ICQ.