WSIRC20.zip and WSIRCV20.zip completely replaces WSIRC14G.ZIP.

SITES:

USA: ftp.clark.net (/pub/csamsi/wsirc20.zip & wsircv20.zip)
USA: cs-ftp.bu.edu (/irc/clients/pc/windows/wsirc20.zip & wsircv20.zip)
USA: winftp.cica.indiana.edu (/pub/pc/win3/winsock/wsirc20.zip & wsircv20.zip)
USA: ftp.undernet.org (wsirc20.zip & wsircv20.zip)
EUR: ftp.demon.co.uk (wsirc20.zip & wsircv20.zip)
EUR: ftp.funet.fi (/pub/msdos/networks/irc/windows/wsirc20.zip & wsircv20.zip)
SIN: use CICA mirror directory
COMPUSERVE: INETNEW, INETRESOURCE,  EURFOR, (WSIRC.ZIP  & WSIRCV.ZIP)


NEW VERSION RELEASE:

This is a new VERSION release, I am releasing WSIRC 2.0 as with the
addition of video and audio capabilities to WSIRC.

This version provides DCC VIDEO which allows person-to-person video
conferencing.

This version will never expire. A 60 day evaluation period is allowed.
It will remind you that it is shareware software at the end of 60 days and
asks that you register it. If you don't wish to register, simply run
WSIRCG.EXE (without video/audio) or WSIRCVG.EXE (with video/audio).

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A FIRST RELEASE OF THIS VERSION, BUGS MAY STILL BE
PRESENT. AS ALWAYS WSIRC IS PROVIDED ON AN AS IS BASIS.


PRESS RELEASE:

WSIRC 2.0 Video is the next version of WSIRC. It now provides DCC VIDEO that
will allow two users to Video Conference, audio is supported in half duplex
mode, i.e. speakerphone style, one party speaks the other party listens. It
provides multiple DCC VIDEO windows at once, although it would be practical
to have only one at a time unless you are connected via a high-speed
connection.

The next release of WSIRC will consist of 2 ZIP files.

wsirc20.zip will contain the original text based IRC client
(WSIRC.EXE-shareware, WSIRCG.EXE-freeware).

wsircv20.zip will contain the new version of WSIRC that provides
DCC VIDEO. As before, both shareware and freeware versions are included in
the same zip file. WSIRCV.EXE is the shareware version, WSIRCVG.EXE is the
freeware version.

The reason for two ZIP files is that DCC VIDEO requires an Intel Smart Video
Recorder Pro video capture board (at about US$ 449.-) and Video for Windows
software. You can use any capture board that supports Intel's Indeo video
compression format, Intel's board provides on board chip hardware based
compression for higher throughput. For those users that do not have a video
capture board WSIRCR.EXE is still provided for their use.

With DCC VIDEO, audio is also transmitted. There is a default threshold, if
the audio input goes above the threshold, recording is enabled to a file,
when the audio input goes under the threshold, recording is stopped and the
audio is sent to the other party. Admittedly this is not the best way, thus
room for improvement exists.

DCC Video on an ISDN dial-up PPP connection provides up to 5 frames per
second throughput, on T1 up to 30fps, on modem line up to 1 frame every 2
seconds. Audio is sent at 1300 bps and should be acceptable even over modem
lines.

Audio is half-duplex due to Windows wave device driver specification
limitation. Additional video compression will be added to increase video
throughput up to an estimated 5 frames per second on modem lines and up to
an estimated 15 frames per second on ISDN lines. Users on T1 lines can go
full throttle as always.

WSIRCV.EXE provides a 60 day evaluation period. WSIRCVG.EXE is freeware,
never a need to register. Both provide DCC VIDEO, in both versions the number
of frames transmitted is limited to 3600 video frames. The rate of video has
been tested from 1 frame every 2 to 4 seconds over a modem to a real time
rate of 30fps over a TCPIP LAN. For modems, this should last for well over
an hour. For real time users at 30fps, this should last for about 2 minutes.
The frame rate is adjustable from 1 to 30 frames per second. The lower the
rate, the longer you can video conference. Once the limit is reached, closing
WSIRC and then reestablishing the DCC VIDEO connection resets the limit.

Other companion products to WSIRC 2.0 Video will follow. WSIRC 2.0 Video Pro
will provide Video Conferencing using IRC servers or private multi-cast
servers, i.e. multi-cast/multi-station video conferencing. This will
require high bandwidth connections, 56K, ISDN or T1 are preferred.

A WSIRC 2.0 Video Answering Machine software based on WSIRC 2.0 Video will
also be made available soon. This will allow users that have dedicated
connections to effectively have a Video Phone available to take video calls
whenever they aren't available to answer their video calls.

The technology used in WSIRC is not based on any other video conferencing
products. WSIRC's technology was developed over a span of 12 months (well
read that as approximately 12 x 4 = 48 weekends, although the final pieces
were developed on weekends over the past 3 months.

Special thanks to a few handful of people that were generous enough to
encourage, assist and accomodate me to further develop WSIRC. Had I lived
on the West Coast, this might have only taken a few months instead of about
a year's worth of effort :-).


NEW FEATURES:

/DCC VIDEO <nick>  - initiates dcc video to nickname,
/DCC XVIDEO        - sets up a dcc video to wait for a connection,
                     this feature can be used without being connected
                     to an IRC server,
/DCC RVIDEO <host> - connects to a pc with direct dcc video without
                     being connected to an IRC server, the host may be
                     an ip address or host name.

Video configuration defaults to 1 frame per second, no video-cast, audio
threshold at 500 (the range is 1 to 32000).

To change video related configuration, the following commands have been
added in the Server Messages Window:

/FPS n             - sets the video frame rate to n frames per second,
/VIDEO-DEVICE n    - sets WSIRC to use video capture device n,
/VIDEO-CAST n      - (n is 1 or 0) sets video cast 1-ON, or 0-OFF, when ON
                     video frames is updated to multiple DCC VIDEO sessions
                     (everybody sees you at the same time), when OFF
                     video frames is updated to the DCC VIDEO session
                     that you last clicked (i.e. had focus/looked) at.
/AUDIO-THRESHOLD n - sets audio threshold to n (range 1 to 32000),
                     whenever audio input exceeds the threshold, recording
                     begins for the DCC VIDEO session that has focus,
                     when the audio input drops below the threshold,
                     recording stops and audio is sent to the other party.
                     Audio is sent to only one DCC VIDEO session at a time,
                     there is no audio-cast capability yet.

The following command was added by popular request to the Server Messages
Window:

/SILENT            - Runs the channel in silent mode, i.e. most server
                     messages go to the Server Message Window instead of
                     cluttering up the channel window.

WSIDENT.EXE is now included in this zip file. WSIDENT is a Windows server
for the ident protocol RFC1413. It allows Internet IRC users to connect to
Unix IRC servers that insists on identifying users based on the ident
protocol.

WSIDENT will first look in the WSIDENT.INI for a valid username, this should
be specified as follows:

[identd]
username=someuser
port=113

If the WSIDENT.INI file is not present or the username is blank, WSIDENT will
look up the username in the WSIRC.INI file.

WSIDENT.EXE is provided as freeware. Copyright 1994, 1995 Caesar M Samsi.

The help file now contains a WSIRC tutorial. SERVERS.TXT contains full
server list, please read it first before sending me email for irc servers.
The SERVERS.TXT contains both EFNET and UNDERNET IRC Servers.

DCC CHAT and DCC SEND are now functional in WSIRC shareware and freeware.
DCC SEND is limited to sending 10240 bytes per file. If you can not initiate
DCC CHAT or SEND check to see that you have configured your DNS properly and
that you have entered your domanized pcname in WSIRC's Server Options dialog
box. On startup if everything is configured correctly, WSIRC will display
your local host name and IP address.

DCC has been improved, users with dynamic ip addressing should be able to
use DCC without too much effort.


KNOWN PROBLEMS:

Problems displaying toolbar buttons when run with PCTools or any desktop
shell program that modifies the default Windows behaviour (new Window
buttons, customized max-min buttons, etc). Please note that this is not
a problem with WSIRC but with the desktop shell that makes use of undocmented
Windows calls or modifies the default Windows message processing behaviour.

The Internet Adapter (TIA) may not be completely compatible with WSIRC's DCC
CHAT and SEND, this is due to the way TIA implements certain name functions
that is required by WSIRC. On initiation of DCC CHAT and SEND, WSIRC requires
the IP address of the host it is running on (TIA's dial up host) and a port
to bind on the dial up host.  I've been unable to experiment with TIA, others
appear to have been able to configure TIA to work properly, yet I continue
to receive reports that it does not from other users. Try it out first !
WSIRC requires a real IP address and pcname to initiate DCC CHAT or SEND.

If a gethostbyname error occurs when initiating DCC CHAT or SEND, check to
see that your pcname and ip address have been entered in your WINSOCK.DLL's
hosts file. It must be entered in the following format:

ip_address pc_name

Note that the ip address occurs first and the pcname second separated by one
space.

GPF's with BC30RTL.DLL is almost always due to an old BWCC.DLL file residing
somewhere on your system and is picked up via the DOS PATH statement. Check
to see if there are and if so, keep the latest version and remove the others.

At times, the window text will appear to clutter up. This seems to be due to
the edit control losing composure. Type /CLEAR to reset the window.

The Help file (WSIRC.HLP) will with some PC video display card configuration
cause a GPF within the video display driver, try changing the resolution or
number of colors displayed by the video display driver.


DESCRIPTION:

WSIRC is a Windows client for the Internet Relay Chat network. It allows
Internet users to chat electronically with each other using IRC servers.

The advantage is that users worldwide can access the IRC network and
converse with users worldwide.

WSIRC is a Windows Sockets 1.1 compliant application and has been tested
with NetManage's and Trumpet's WINSOCK.DLL tcp/ip protocol stack.

A WSIRC IRC server is currently under construction to provide video, audio,
raw data as well as the currently supported text data.


SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS:

WINSOCK.DLL must be present.  WINSOCK.DLL is provided as part of your
networking software. It is not part of WSIRC.  A number of shareware versions
exist. Of note is Peter Tattam's $20 shareware WINSOCK.DLL available from a
number of ftp sites.  A book called Windows Internet Tour Guide includes a
sampler version of Netmanage's Chameleon (version 3.11) for $25.- it's a very
good book for Internet beginners. Explains SLIP/PPP setup, mail, ping, news,
ftp, telnet, mailing lists, etc.

For WSIRC Video 2.0, an Intel SmartVideo Recorder or similar board with
on board compression is required and works best. Video for Windows 1.1e is
also required and should have been provided by the video capture card
vendor. You can always download the latest version of Video for Windows from
the Windows Multimedia (GO WINMM) or Intel (GO INTEL) forums on CompuServe.
A complete package including WSIRC Video 2.0 and Video for Windows will also
be distributed to ftp sites.


SPECIAL NOTES:

There are 8 versions available:

Original TEXT based IRC client:

SHAREWARE (WSIRC 2.00-S/WSIRC.EXE).
FREEWARE (WSIRC 2.00-G/WSIRCG.EXE).
REGISTERED (WSIRC 2.00-R).
SITE LICENSE (WSIRC 2.00-L).

WSIRC VIDEO 2.0 IRC client:

SHAREWARE (WSIRC Video 2.00-S/WSIRCV.EXE).
FREEWARE (WSIRC Video 2.00-G/WSIRCVG.EXE).
REGISTERED (WSIRC Video 2.00-R).
SITE LICENSE (WSIRC Video 2.00-L).

Only the Shareware and Freeware versions may be distributed, if you see a 
Registered version being distributed please email me.

The SITE LICENSE version allows unlimited users on a LAN each with a private
WSIRC.INI file.

Please note that I created WSIRC for my own personal enjoyment as a hobby.
It is not meant to be a money-making venture although I don't mind financial
recognition for it.  In the spirit of cooperation within the Internet I have
included a FREEWARE version for use by anybody that simply won't or can't
purchase a licensed registered copy.  Funds received from registration will
go towards further development of WSIRC.

The present includes images, sound and video in both client version. The
future includes a Video Phone with Video Answering machine. A private video
server, and other related products.

International users, please note that you can download an international
version of BWCCxxxx.DLL from FTP.BORLAND.COM if your Windows installation
displays a missing BWCCxxxx.DLL message box due to an International language
Windows intallation.


COPYRIGHT:

Copyright 1994,1995 by Caesar M Samsi. Permission is granted to distribute
the complete FREEWARE and SHAREWARE versions only.


REGISTRATION:

Please note that you are *free* to use the FREEWARE versions, you can use
the FREEWARE version on your TCP/IP LAN if you wish. Try the program
out for a few weeks before registering it. Internet Service Providers may
be provided with a special discount if registrations are done in groups.

Original TEXT based IRC client:

Individual use: US$  39.95 ( 1 Disk, 1 Manual )
Site license:   US$ 449.95 ( 20 Disks, 20 Manuals )

WSIRC VIDEO based IRC client:

Individual use: US$  59.95 ( 1 Disk, 1 Manual )
Site license:   US$ 649.95 ( 20 Disks, 20 Manuals)

Future releases (2 to 3 months timeframe DO NOT ORDER UNTIL THEN):

WSIRC AUDIO based IRC client (has audio only, no video):

Individual use: US$  49.95 ( 1 Disk, 1 Manual )
Site license:   US$ 549.95 ( 20 Disks, 20 Manuals)

WSIRC Video Phone:

Individual use: US$  69.95 ( 1 Disk, 1 Manual )
Site license:   US$ 749.95 ( 20 Disks, 20 Manuals)

Minor bug and feature updates are free (e.g. 2.00 to 2.xx update). Major
version updates are at minimal cost to registered users.


RESOURCES:

The new WSIRC Homepage will be put up soon on my home server:
USR: http://www.clark.net/pub/csamsi

The IRC UseNet Newsgroup carrying IRC related news can be found as: ALT.IRC,
there are several other subnewsgroups under ALT.IRC as well.


EMAIL:

csamsi@clark.net, 72030.562@compuserve.com