Originally Posted by YoDude

I finally found an old what.cd email, and I'd like to join NWCD.

I've never used IRC in my life, but downloaded Textual (Mac) and followed what minimal instructions I was able to find. Nothing.

Can someone please help me get through these early steps?

It's best that you use a good IRC client (like mIRC for instance). You can read this: https://www.wikihow.tech/Use-mIRC to get an idea how an IRC client works and how to connect to a channel.