Microsoft Comic Chat, the 30-year-old IRC client that helped popularize Comic Sans, is becoming open source.

Microsoft’s once popular IRC client is Funny Chat is open source Celebrating its 30th anniversary. Those who frequented the World Wide Web in the 90s will likely remember Comic Chat as a unique experience of what an IRC chat could be. These are graphical avatars that present conversations and chat rooms in the form of comic strips.

Originally developed by Microsoft Researcher David Kurlander and released on August 13, 1996, Comic Chat began life as a research project before transitioning to Microsoft Chat and becoming the default chat client for MSN.

“Today, we’re excited to announce the open source release of Microsoft Comic Chat, a chat client that automatically turns Internet Relay Chat (IRC) conversations into comic panels of illustrated characters, speech bubbles, and emoticons, and helped introduce the world to the small font called Comic Sans.” Microsoft’s Scott Hanselman said in a blog post today.

Latest Videos

“For many people, Comic Chat is a nostalgic artifact from the early days of the Internet as we transitioned from technologies like telnet, Usenet, and IRC to the visual Internet we enjoy today. For others, it’s a legendary piece of Microsoft history that they’ve only heard about in stories, screenshots, and discussions about typography. They appreciate the wonderfully unconventional idea of ​​being able to explore the source code for themselves.”