Chat
IRC
There is a well-populated operating systems development IRC channel on Freenode at #osdev. Several regular contributors to the OSDev.org wiki and forums are usually present in the channel.
- Channel log: http://osdev-logs.qzx.com
- Today's log: https://freenode.logbot.info/osdev
IRC client suggestions
Make your own! IRC is one of the simpler protocols to implement, to the point where it could be the first thing you implement after TCP and Telnet. If there's anything tricky about it, it's calculating the maximum length of the actual text, but you can just use a fixed maximum which allows room for all the other fields at their maximum lengths. Or just ignore it, Freenode seems to handle long messages well. In any case, the standard is RFC 1459
Freenode offers an AJAX IRC web client in case you don't have or want to make one.
Other clients:
- Pidgin supports a vast range of different chat services in one client
- Riot has Matrix and IRC in one package
Discord
There is an active and welcoming OS development server on Discord with hundreds of members. The server is not affiliated with this OSDev.org.
Invite link: https://discord.gg/RnCtsqD
They also have a matrix channel: #osdev:matrix.org