Hi there
These message boards are here for helping people with the mIRC client - it's not the "chat" thing itself! mIRC is a 'client' that connects you to 'IRC' - where the thousands of chatters reside on different networks and chat rooms (channels). These message boards aren't actually "real time" - meaning people will not reply instantly like on IRC. It could take several hours or a day before someone can reply to you here, so obviously not much of a chat medium!
To connect to IRC you need to download and install
mIRC. You can get help on installing and connecting
here.
Might want to read
this post for some further information.
Happy chattin'
Regards,