TOC protocol: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:49, 27 September 2007

Revision as of 15:43, 20 March 2008

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{{Cleanupunref|date=March 20062008}}

The '''TOC protocol''', or '''Talk to OSCAR protocol''', was a [[protocol (computing)|protocol]] used by some [[Third-party developer|third-party]] [[AOL Instant Messenger]] [[client (computing)|client]]s and several clients that [[AOL]] produced itself. Sometime near [[August 19]] [[2005]], AOL discontinued support for the protocol and no longer uses it in any of the instant messaging clients it actively maintains, such as its Windows and Mac clients for the AOL Instant Messenger and [[ICQ]] systems. However, it once did produce several of its own TOC clients, including [[TiK]] and [[TAC (software)|TAC]] which are written in [[Tcl]]/[[Tk (computing)|Tk]], [[TNT (software)|TNT]] which is written in [[Emacs]] [[Lisp programming language|Lisp]], all of which are open source, and a Java client originally called [[TIC (software)|TIC]] which later became the [[Quick Buddy]] web applet. AOL also provided the TOC protocol specification openly to developers in the hopes that they will use it instead of the [[proprietary]] [[OSCAR protocol]] they use themselves. The [[TOC2 protocol]] is still supported.

TOC was an [[ASCII]]-based protocol, while OSCAR is a binary protocol. In addition, TOC contained fewer features than its OSCAR counterpart. OSCAR provides such functionality as [[buddy icon]]s, file transfer, and [[advertising]].

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* [http://site.n.ml.org/info/naim/ naim] (ncurses, non-GUI)

* [http://www.miniaim.net miniaim] (C++)

==References==

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Instant messaging protocols]]