This conferencing system (initially named "conf" for lack of a better name) is a type of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) system, more commonly known as an Instant Messaging (IM) system. (CMC systems also encompass non-interactive systems such as email and Usenet News.)

This CMC imitates the text-based user interface of CONNECT, an earlier CMC system developed by a group of students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, starting in early 1986. CONNECT was written as a replacement for an earlier CMC at RPI named CB. CONNECT ran under the obscure Michigan Terminal System (MTS) mainframe operating system, used in production by only about 13 sites worldwide. Note that these are early systems; MTS (1967) predates UNIX (1969) and CONNECT (1986) predates Internet Relay Chat (IRC), which was started in 1988. The CONNECT user base migrated to a new CMC named Clover when CONNECT was forced to shut down on June 30, 1991.

Clover was started in 1989, intended as a next-generation successor to CONNECT. An unfinished prototype was rushed into production, just in time to take the place of CONNECT after it was shut down. Clover was implemented in C under UNIX, using a custom UDP-based protocol, which requires users to run a custom Clover client program to connect to the server. Unfortunately, Clover suffers from bugs and stability problems, mainly due to being rushed into production.

This CMC system was written as a potential replacement for Clover. Like Clover, it is also implemented in C under UNIX and imitates the CONNECT user interface. Unlike Clover, it uses the standard TELNET protcol over TCP, so users can connect to the server with a standard TELNET client, instead of needing to run a special client program. For efficiency, the server is implemented as a single-threaded select-based event loop using non-blocking I/O, implementing the TELNET protocol with a state machine.

Initial development of this server began on November 30, 1992.