Imagine instead of having your chat conversations relayed as boring old text it is rendered as a comic instead! That's exactly what this fun IRC client does. You can still talk to non Comic Chat users on any IRC network, but they will see boring plain text, where your conversation will appear to you as a rendered cartoon strip. Its easy its fast and its fun.
 

The Text, Audio & Video Chat Network

Created by the University of Washington and Microsoft. Although the project is discontinued we still think this is an amazing piece of software. To learn about the development process take a look at the white paper: http://grail.cs.washington.edu/pub/papers/comics.pdf (very academic).

MSCHAT25.EXE

The initial download contains about 12 characters, to find tons more you can use ChatCheck software from SQIZ (visit to find out more). Here are a couple of our favourites (if you have Microsoft Chat - click to download them).

The more adventurous or slightly artistic among you can create their own characters using a natty piece of software called the Microsoft Chat Character Editor. This will NOT work on XP/2000 and has not been tested on NT! The characters generated by the software will however work on any machine running Microsoft Chat. Users simply need to auto-enable "Character Downloads" in the "Settings" option of Microsoft Chat to see your creations (read the documentation).

Extremely limited information for Microsoft Chat is available at their website: Microsoft Chat Site

Downloading and Installing Microsoft Chat

The file you need to download is 1.8 MB and is called MSCHAT25.EXE. It is completely free and runs on Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP

>> Click here for a printable version of these instructions
>> Detailed download and install instructions for Microsoft Chat

MSCHAT25.EXE 

1. Click on the Download Now image above

    

2. A dialog box will pop up asking you where to save the mschat25.exe file.
   1. Select and write down the location on your computer to save the file to so you will be able to find it later. The location it suggests should be fine. Keep the file name "mschat25.exe". Alternatively save it to your desktop.
   2. Then click on the Save button. It should take about 10 minutes to download if you are using a 28.8 Kb/sec modem.

    

3. Find the mschat25.exe file on your computer and install it, you do this by:
   1. Double-clicking on the mschat25.exe this will install Microsoft Chat.
   2. Confirm that you want to install Microsoft Chat by clicking Yes.
   3. Then it will ask you to accept license terms. Read and then click Accept.
   4. Then it will ask you where you want to put the Microsoft Chat files. The location it suggests should be fine so click next
   5. Click Yes when it asks you if it is ok to create the Microsoft Chat folder.
   6. Click Ok to finish.