character-at-a-time chat

Create a web-based chatting program capable of character-at-a-time chatting similar to old ICQ peer-to-peer chatting or ytalk. Program should operate as much as possible like ICQ 2003's real-time chat. Interface should be a split screen with one user's input on top, second user's input on the bottom. Inputs are displayed one-character-at-a-time, and carriage returns should be time stamped so that a text file can be saved of the chat that organizes each line of text chronologically. ## Deliverables What I'm looking for is a very simple solution to a problem that is not adequately addressed by current freely available software. ICQ had a real-time chat program that was very analogous to the old talk/ytalk UNIX chat. A split screen separates two user's inputs and input comes in real-time (i.e.: character-by-character rather than line-by-line). At the end of a chat session, the user could save the buffer, which would parse the two screens into a single text file with the text between successive carriage returns constituting a time-stamped "line" with the each user's name placed before their respective lines, just like a standard IRC chat. ICQ has long since seen fit to abandon this aspect of its chat software, going to the much less immediate "IM" style chat (i.e. line-by-line). Since ICQ 2003a was still functional, one could continue to use that software (with attendant security risks). However, this software has become increasingly unstable with increasing updates to windows. At this point it no longer works for some Vista users and does not work at all on windows 7. Google Wave is an intriguing platform that allows for character-at-a-time communication. However, the setup of a wave is not as ideal as the split-screen of the old ICQ chats. Additionally, there is no clear way to save the wave to a local text file. The most ideal solution for this problem would be a Wave extension that would transform the wave environment into an ICQ-like chat window, complete with split-screen and ability to save buffers. The solution must accommodate 2 users, but n-user functionality may be added (by subdividing the screen into more than 2 pieces). Some work has already been done by others, cf. "Export a Wave" extension and the "RetroChat" gadget (which is line-by-line but alters the wave interface just as an example) Any other web-based or software-based solution would be considered, but one limitation is that I don't run my own web server and don't plan to run one. Therefore any other solution would either need to make a direct connection between the two machines, or else not require a local server. As may be obvious this is a small project from someone with little detailed technical knowledge of web coding - so advice and patience are appreciated. At the completion of this project it would be released for free as a Wave gadget for anyone to use.