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

EPIC is 100% backwards compatable with ircII becuase EPIC *is* ircII.
EPIC was originally built upon the ircII-2.6 client and has maintained
faithfulness to remain current up to the 2.8.2 release.
EPIC is somewhat larger than the stock client (24%), but that is mostly
because of the multitude of new features, the dual ANSI/K&R compliant
function headers, and the large amount of re-written code in an attempt
to make ircii faster, more efficient, and more powerful.

EPIC is derived directly 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.

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.

Site			Directory				Maintainer
-----------------	------------------------------------	------------
ftp.cris.com		/pub/ircii				Kanan
ftp.comco.com		/pub/irc/clients/epic			Demon
ftp.neato.org		/pub/irc				hop
ftp.parodius.com	/pub/EPIC				YOSHi
ftp.acronet.net		/pub/ircii				hop
ftp.cdc.net		/pub/users/crimedog/irc/epic		Crimedog
ftp.undernet.org	/pub/irc/clients			Mmmm
ftp.cs.vu.nl		/pub/aradael/irc/client			*Niels
lori.albany.net		/pub/users/khuon/irc/clients		*Wintrhawk

* -- means that as of my last check, site was not mirroring current client.
** -- means not being actively maintained

If you want to mirror the EPIC client, please drop an email to Jeremy
Nelson (nelson@cs.uwp.edu) 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 450k, the help files take about 150k, and
from time to time there are other patches that range from 5k to 30k in size.

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 is fully ANSI-compliant.  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 provide both a "old"
style (k&r) function header and a "new" style (ansi) function header with
every function and provide every extern function a prototype in a header
file.

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.
