[ale] What technology is used on chat web pages?

[Jim Lynch]

How do they write web pages such as chat pages?  Traditional web pages
are "fetch" only technology.  That is, the user controls when he wants
the page to change, except for a bit of javascript that can refresh or
modify the page locally.  But on a chat type page, the server has to be
able to send data to the users page when the other party enters
something.  Does anyone know how you could do that?   I suppose a
javascript could set a timer and refresh periodically, but that doesnt
appear to be the way it works.  

Is there a way to establish a pipe somehow?

I'd like to write a simple chat page via perl and cgi, if possible.

Thanks,
Jim.
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