Editing Zephyr (protocol) (section)

{{short description|Computer network protocol}}
{{IPstack}}
Created at [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] as part of [[Project Athena]],<ref name="Athena Network Services">{{cite journal|title=Network Services in the Athena Environment|author=Jennifer G. Steiner|author2=Daniel E. Geer, Jr.|date=21 July 1988|journal=Proceedings of the Winter 1988 Usenix Conference|citeseerx = 10.1.1.31.8727}}</ref> '''Zephyr''' was designed as an [[instant messaging]] protocol and application-suite with a heavy [[Unix]] background. Using the [[Unix philosophy|"do one thing, do it well" philosophy]] of Unix, it was made up of several separate programs working together to make a complete messaging system. Zephyr and [[Internet Relay Chat|IRC]] were the first widely used [[Internet Protocol|IP]]-based instant-messaging systems.