i did try to find opensource php + AJAX base IRC client. but found none. but there is a PEAR library available to connect to IRC server. i will look into it and try to write some IRC client. it gonna be fun ;)
Not having read the rest of the thread, I got mildly interested in this and made a simple web based chat thing. You can try it out with seperate browsers (simulating different clients). From what I remember it probably won't cope with the load you're refering to, but it's just an example (oh and (for better or worse) there's no need for an IRC server).
http://www.phpguru.org/chat/chat.php -- Richard Heyes +----------------------------------------+ | Access SSH with a Windows mapped drive | | http://www.phpguru.org/sftpdrive | +----------------------------------------+ -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php