When I was younger, I use to use this old chat system called IRC. I wonder what ever happened to that; the internet has changed so much since then.
I remember that, too.  Well, considering the IRC clients are computer programs that we can install maybe it is still around.
Who created IRC anyhow?
of its channels (from half a million in 2003).
History.
History Beginning.
IRC was created by Jarkko Oikarinen in August 1988 to replace a program called MUT (MultiUser Talk) on a BBS called OuluBox at the University of Oulu in Finland, where he was working at the Department of Information Processing Science. Jarkko intended to extend the BBS software he administered, to allow news in the Usenet style, real time discussions and similar BBS features. The first part he implemented was the chat part, which
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is an application layer protocol that facilitates communication in the form of text. The chat process works on a client/server networking model. IRC clients are computer programs that users can install on their system or web based applications running either locally in the browser or on a 3rd party server. These clients communicate with chat servers to transfer messages to other clients. IRC is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-on-one