EPIC is the (E)nhanced (P)rogrammable (I)RC-II (C)lient.

EPIC4 is a new direction in ircII development.  No longer is EPIC
100% backwards compatable with ircII, but instead we have chosen to
find those things where compatability is undesirable, and fix them.
No gratuitous incompatabilities have been added, but lots of  new
code has been added to make EPIC the best ircII client we could make.

EPIC4 is derived directly from EPIC3, which was itself derived from 
IRC-II which is currently maintained by Matthew Green, and includes 
in whole all the additions included in the "plus" clients by Jeremy 
Nelson and all of the modifications in the "mod" clients by Jake Khuon.  
EPIC is currently maintained by EPIC Software Labs (ESL), comprised of 
Jeremy Nelson, Jake Kuhon, Robert Chady, and a cast of a dozen others.

If you're interested in a list of pertinent links, try
	http://links.epicsol.org/

You can get a copy of the EPIC client via ftp from these mirrors:
Not all sites will be always up to date, but many of them try.
(Last updated on November 10, 1998)

Site			Directory				Maintainer
-----------------	------------------------------------	------------
	--- More recent documented mirrors ---
epicsol.org	 [1]	/pub/ircii				hop
ftp.epicsol.org  [1]	/pub/ircii				hop
ftp.magenet.net		/pub/epic				bruns
ftp.freenet.de		/pub/ftp.epicsol.org/pub		Michael Haardt
ftp.leguin.org.uk	/pub/mirrors/ftp.epicsol.org/		is

	--- Older mirrors, may not exist any more ---
broken.com		/pub/epic				da5id
mud.pl			/pub/epic				Marcin
ftp.linuxberg.com	???					Rob
ftp.mirror.uk.uu.net	/pub/epic				Ben Hutchinson
ftp.chillin.org		/pub/epic				mdmbkr
http://www.snafu.de/~kl/epic/					Kasi
ftp.sanyusan.se		/pub/epic				synker
ftp.bitchx.com		/pub/epic				Mhacker
ftp.burken.nu		/pub/irc/clients/epic			SpaceDump
totem.fix.no 		/pub/mirrors/epic			nickerne
http://www.ircii.org	/ircii/clients/epic
mirror.pipex.net	/pub/epic				Ben
ftp.levitate.net	/pub/epic				Chord
ftp.nut-shell.com	/pub/mirrors/epic			Psycho
ftp.parodius.com	/pub/mirrors/epic			Koitsu
pubftp.abyss.net	/mirror/epic				edgewise
http://www.min.net/~douglas/ircii				strobe
ftp.funet.fi		/pub/unix/networking/irc/ircII/epic	Vesa
clients.undernet.org	/pub/irc/clients/unix/ircii		Mmmm
cupid.suninternet.com	/pub/ircii				Joe Ottinger
ftp.sergei.cc		/pub/irc/epic			Mattias Karlsson
ftp.unixpower.org	/pub/epic				Alan P.

[1] This is the master site for all EPIC releases.  All mirrors are advised
    to mirror ftp.epicsol.org if they want to have all current releases.
[2] This is the master site for all production EPIC releases.  All mirrors
    are advised to mirror ftp.neato.org if they only want to mirror current
    production releases.

If you want to mirror the EPIC client, please drop an email to Jeremy
Nelson (jnelson@acronet.net) telling him the host and directory where we
can count on you to keep a copy of the current version of the EPIC client.
The EPIC client takes about 500k, the help files take about 150k, and
from time to time there are other patches that range from 5k to 30k in size.
A good, complete mirror of the EPIC FTP site will be about 15 megs.

EPIC is completely safe:  There are no hidden trap doors.  We value your 
trust, and will not do anything to abuse it.

EPIC is programmable:  While ircII does contain a wide range of commands 
and functions, several glaring ommisions exist, which EPIC has attempted 
to fill, making the ircII language complete, precise, and efficient.

EPIC supports bots:  We do not agree with those who feel that script bots 
are all the evil of irc, and we feel that scripts bots must not be 
squelched by those who have the stranglehold of control on irc.  EPIC will
support bots for as long as we maintain it.

EPIC is not anal retentive:  EPIC allows you to do EVERYTHING that the irc 
protocol (RFC 1459) allows, and does not place any arbitrary restrictions 
upon you.  EPIC *does* fully comply with the protocol as shipped and does 
not allow you to do anything that is deemed illegal by the protocol.

EPIC is complete:  EPIC supplies over 100 various functions and commands
which allow you to do things very quickly that required very large or slow 
scripts in the past.

EPIC uses ANSI function declarations.  Most current versions of the stock 
client do have full prototyping for all functions, which has the same net 
effect as the work we have done.  We, however, chose to move all our function 
headers to the ANSI style, rather than relying on K&R with function 
prototypes.  We provide a function declaration in a header file for every
extern function.

EPIC is getting smaller and faster.  Changes are continually underway
to provide a faster client with more functionality while using less CPU 
cycles.  While these may appear to be conflicting goals, the whole point 
of the EPIC project is to provide the best client that runs as well as 
can be managed.

The EPIC mailing list is ircii-epic@concentric.net.  Its run by a majordomo.
The list should be considered *low traffic*, and is used primarily for
product release announcements and public bug reports.  Everything else 
should be taken to private email.
