Fahad (fæhəd, فهد) – A panther, leopard.
I Would Like to Write About Myself
In early 1997–1998, I knew nothing about the internet or IRC. I used to watch my friends having fun on IRC. The internet was new for us and quite expensive too— not everyone could afford a personal PC. We used to go to internet cafés and spend hours chatting with random people and having lots of fun.
DALnet was the most popular server at that time. I still remember it was the default server on almost every PC in the internet cafés. I didn’t know the IRC commands to register my nickname or a channel. One of my friends, who owned a shop, had just bought a new Pentium II PC, so I asked him to register my nick (RuGaL) for me.
I was a big fan of the game The King of Fighters ’94, and Rugal was the final boss—a villain you had to defeat at the end to win. He was a very strong character. From that time on, I became a huge fan of both the game and Rugal himself.
My very first nickname wasn’t RuGaL—it was (El_Mariachi), inspired by the action film Desperado. But I changed it later. In the early 2000s, my friend taught me how to connect through a server and how to register a nick. Before that, my nickname used to look like this: ||^RUGAL^||, and later it became RuGaL. I officially registered it in 2001. During those years, I learned more about IRC and had a lot of fun with my friends and people from around the world.
Everything that has a beginning has an ending. There came a time when I was no longer interested in IRC. Some people—even my own friends—started using it the wrong way. There were fights in chats, and even real-life conflicts. It wasn’t friendly anymore. People were fighting over nicknames and channels, flooding, and doing other negative things. So I made up my mind to quit IRC for good.
In December 2003, I was on vacation. It was cold outside. When I typed /server irc.dal.net 6667, I couldn’t connect. I searched online and discovered that DALnet was under a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack. I was shocked. Many users switched to other servers, but I decided to quit completely. I was already busy with real life and wanted to spend more time with my family and friends.
That day, it was all over. In December 2003, I finally quit IRC by typing my last message: /quit Bye mIRC. It was hard for me.
Years passed, and I forgot almost everything about mIRC—even the commands. Then, after a long time, I decided to return, mainly because I missed my friends. In the summer of 2008, I rejoined IRC. Of course, my nickname and channel were gone. I used to run the channel #Khaitan in the old days.
I couldn’t find my old friends. Most of them had already left—only a few remained. I felt like I was the only one who came back. Still, I made new friends, but by the end of 2010, they left too.
Now, I am retired. I have become the founder of the channels I once dreamed of. I truly miss the old days on IRC. We had so much fun, and I made many good friends.
I miss them deeply. Whether they remember me or not, I will always remember them. I hope they are in good health, and I wish them all the best. I will carry those memories with me for the rest of my life.
This is my brief story, which I tried to keep short so you wouldn’t get bored.
“Always dream big, because reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.” – Tupac Shakur
Thank you.
RuGaL
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