Forums Scripts & Popups need to convert to string and then execute string

$eval(code, number) makes mIRC evaluate code, number times, in your case, you want it to evaluate twice: once to get the identifier name, and then again to get the value it returns. The use of ! is to prevent the first round of evaluation from trying to evaluate $get as an identifier by itself (The $1 doesn't need it because in the first round of evaluation the $ is preceded by a ( so mIRC doesn't try to evaluate it).