TiK

This article is about the instant messaging client. For other uses, see Tik (disambiguation).
TiK
Original author(s)AOL
Initial releaseNovember 20, 1998; 25 years ago (1998-11-20)
Final release
0.90 / June 25, 2001; 23 years ago (2001-06-25)
Repositorysourceforge.net/projects/tik/
Written inTcl[1]
Operating systemUnix-like
Service nameAOL Instant Messenger
Available inEnglish, German[2]
TypeInstant messaging
LicenseGPL-2.0-or-later
Websitetik.sourceforge.net

TiK was an open source instant messaging client for the AOL Instant Messenger service, which used AOL's TOC protocol. It was written in Tcl, using the Tk GUI framework. Reportedly[by whom?], the "T" and the "K" in TiK's name stands for "Tk", and the "i" stands for "instant messenger".

It was originally created and maintained by AOL, and the first public release, version 0.25 Beta, was made available on November 20, 1998.[3] AOL continued to maintain TiK until the release of version 0.75 Beta on July 13, 1999.[4] By December 1999, the project was abandoned by AOL and its official website had been silently removed, with a promised subsequent release having never materialized.[5] Several unofficial forks emerged to continue development and fill the vacuum left by AOL, the most prominent likely[weasel words] being the one hosted at SourceForge. This fork, too, eventually stalled; its last release was version 0.90, in June 2001.[6]

With the discontinuation of the AIM service in 2017, TiK and other AIM clients are now of primarily historical interest.

  1. ^ "tik". Archived from the original on September 9, 2023. Retrieved January 10, 2024. Note: TiK 0.83 and up requires Tcl/Tk 8.1 or up
  2. ^ "Alternative Languages with the TiK Strings System". Archived from the original on May 27, 2018. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  3. ^ "TiK Home Page". November 20, 1998. Archived from the original on December 3, 1998. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  4. ^ "TiK Home Page". July 13, 1999. Archived from the original on August 17, 2000. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  5. ^ "tik". Archived from the original on September 9, 2023. Retrieved January 10, 2024. Time has been tik'ing away since aol last promised to update tik (should have been done early december 1999). nothing has happened. In fact, things have only gotten worse. aol's official TiK site has been completely removed, leaving us with nothing.
  6. ^ "tik". June 25, 2001. Archived from the original on September 9, 2023. Retrieved January 10, 2024. w00t! 0.90 is finally out, as i sigh a large sigh of relief...