AthenaIRC was created to be a new face on Macintosh Internet Relay Chat. At the time of it's creation all the other IRC clients for Mac had stagnated, no one was innovating. The two leaders in the market, Ircle and Snak, were focused more in the direction of adding everything any user could possible want, rather then what the user really needed. Today, Ircle has bloated to the point that even it's still loyal users have to admit that it is a decaying corpse. Snak, while being a very well rounded client, succeeds by implimenting every bell and whistle a user might want. ShadowIRC, the once strong power client, has fallen to the wayside as a usable port to MacOS X slowely evolved. AthenaIRC was created to show that you didn't need all the cool features to make a decent IRC client, you just needed a consise interface and the flexibility to give users control.
AthenaIRC was the first mainstream client to port to MacOS X. At it's peak AthenaIRC had over 4,000 regular users in OSX alone. In 2002 it won the REALbasic Cubies award for best internet application. TUCOWS.com gave it four stars. It began a revolution in Macintosh IRC, paving the way for new clients such as xChat and iRC. Clients which give you the kitchen counter, but exclude the sink.

Sadly, AthenaIRC eventually met the same fate as the clients it was created to rival. Constant patches to the code to add new features led to a bulk level that could not be worked with. It's like taking a house, and deciding you want to add a window, but you don't want to rebuild the wall, so you just cut a hole in it. Sure, it works, but the wall will never be as strong as it once was. Now do that over and over again, eventually that wall will be so unstable that you can't work with it any longer. AthenaIRC is that wall, and so it is time to rebuild it.

To put it straight, Minerva is meant for those who just want to chat. It's designed for those who enjoy an online community. Here's just some of the features Minerva offers:
Compact interface - Have all your channels in one window, or one window for every channel.
Optional Floating Taskbar lists all open chat windows for quit switching.
Custom command aliases - Create your own command shortcuts using the built in command alias system
Custom contextual menus - Define what you want on your userlist menu (work in progress)
Nickname Autocomplete - Start typing a nick and press the tab key. Minerva show a list of closest matching nicknames, or just complete the nick if there's only one match.
Custom definable message formats - Everyone likes their channel text formatted differently. Minerva lets you decide
Text / HTML Channel Logging - Why should your logs be less formatted then your output? Take a look at how Minerva logs can look.
Individual channel settings - Every channel remembers it's own settings, so when you come back the next day the window opens right where you left off
XDCC Tracker - For those who hang out in XDCC file sharing channels, Minerva offers a XDCC Tracker which catalogs all the file bot offerings
URL Tracker - Need a URL that someone said an hour ago? Don't scroll up, just look in the tracker.
iChat Style IRC Buddylist - Floating window shows all your IRC buddies for each open network, and shows their status.

Easy IRC Client for MacOS X
Easy to use, true MacOS X Interface
Single or Multiple windows
Multiple Servers
Searchable Server and Channel list
See if your buddies are online
Sound alerts
Speech
File Transfer
Clickable URLs
Clickable MP3 and XDCC File Offers
And a lot more...

Ircle is a Macintosh (only!) program to use IRC (Internet Relay Chat). IRC enables you to talk with typed messages, in realtime, to other Internet users around the world. IRC is organized in channels on a specific topic. You can also talk privately with someone. On average there are 100,000 users and 10,000 channels online on the big IRC networks.
Ircle allows you to connect to up to 10 networks at the same time. Each connection can have 10 channels. You can also exchange files with others, also with PC or Unix users.
With Quicktime and a camera or microphone installed you can even send live audio and video to other ircle users. Ircle is a shareware program. It has a 30 day evaluation period. If you like it, you have to pay the US$ 15 fee once, and get free updates and support. Ircle is fully functional during the evaluation period.

System requirements: Runs on any Mac with Mac OS 7.0 through 9.2.x or Mac OS X 10.1 or newer.. 2 Mb free Ram. An internet connection.
The version in this download is in English in Carbon OS X flavor, other languages/flavors available here.

• Unique docking windows allow efficient use of window space
• Built-in address book that allows you to keep track of the snippets of information you find as to talk to other people via IRC
• Guardian feature that can help parents and teachers control what channels their children and students can visit
• Easy download of MP3 files from sorted list of available songs.
• Settings like background color and font can be selected individually for each channel
• Connection records can specify multiple servers, which allows the program to try each server until it finds one that will connect
• Aliases and scripting eliminates much tedious typing