At request of DH, I enabled the chat box function on the forums.
It's only available to members, which I've switched over to needing to be authorized by me, so don't worry about someone dropping by and reading old chat convos.
After some testing today, I've put the chat window back on the forum itself, or it can open in a popup/new window/new tab depending on your browser settings instead. Just look under the 'Who's Online' list for how many users/who's in the chat, along with a link to it.
Dead and I *also* ascertained after some testing that if you don't log out of the chat and merely let yourself time out, the entire forum gets temporarily overloaded and dies for a minute. So try not to go afk inside the chat/forget to log out. These are the downsides to a free service.
<3