Program Perl/Web Chat Script to Use jQuery/Ajax to Post and Load Messages to Chat Window

I have an older chat script written in Perl that uses the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and HTML meta refresh tags to post data such as new messages and user logins/logouts to server and load updated data to the chat window. When it refreshes the page it annoys chat users as it automatically reloads browser window. I need the chat to utilize jQuery/Ajax instead to smoothly refresh chat room by sending data to server in background and loading it into a DIV container in chat window.