Editing BITNET Relay (section)

== Background ==

Before BITNET Relay was implemented, any form of communication over BITNET required identifying the remote user and host.

Relay ran on a special [[User identifier|ID]] using several BITNET hosts. To use it, a message was sent to a user ID called RELAY. The Relay program running on that user ID would then provide multi-user chat functions, primarily in the form of "channels" ([[chat room]]s). The message could contain either a command for Relay (preceded by the popular "/" slash character command prefix, still in use today), or a message at the remote host (typically a [[mainframe computer]]).

Computers connected to BITNET were generally located at universities and government agencies, due to limited access to computer network bandwidth. It was not uncommon for a university's entire network connection to run over a single [[Leased line|leased telephone line]] or even a 4800 baud [[dial-up]] connection. Thus using scarce computing and network resources for "frivolous" purposes, such as chat, was often discouraged.