--- title: Microsoft open-sources Comic Chat, the 1990s IRC client... description: Microsoft has open-sourced Comic Chat, the 1996 IRC client that rendered conversations as comic panels and was the birthplace of Comic Sans. The code is now on... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-open-sources-comic-chat-the-1990s-irc-client-that-invented-comic-sans-f6wohvgps twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Microsoft open-sources Comic Chat, the 1990s IRC client that invented Comic Sans | daily.dev og:description: Microsoft has open-sourced Comic Chat, the 1996 IRC client that rendered conversations as comic panels and was the birthplace of Comic Sans. The code is now on... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-open-sources-comic-chat-the-1990s-irc-client-that-invented-comic-sans-f6wohvgps og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/f6wOHvGPs.png og:image:alt: Microsoft open-sources Comic Chat, the 1990s IRC client that invented Comic Sans og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Microsoft open-sources Comic Chat, the 1990s IRC client that invented Comic Sans **[Collections](https://daily.dev/sources/collections)** · 2 min read · 2 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary Microsoft has open-sourced Comic Chat, the 1996 IRC client that rendered conversations as comic panels and was the birthplace of Comic Sans. The code is now on GitHub under an MIT license. Originally built with Visual C++ 4.0 and MFC by David Kurlander at Microsoft Research, it shipped with Internet Explorer 3 and later Windows 98. The release includes examples of AI-assisted modernization showing the codebase building with current Visual Studio tools and running on modern displays. It's framed as a software preservation effort for developers, historians, and retro computing enthusiasts. ## Content Microsoft has released the source code for Comic Chat, its 1990s IRC client that rendered typed conversations as comic strip panels with illustrated characters, speech bubbles, and expressions. The code is now on GitHub under an MIT license. Originally built in Visual C++ 4.0 and MFC by David Kurlander at Microsoft Research, Comic Chat shipped with Internet Explorer 3 in 1996 and later with Windows 98. It's also where Comic Sans first appeared — the font was designed specifically for the client's speech bubbles before escaping into the broader world. The release is framed as software preservation rather than a polished relaunch. The repository contains the original source with minimal updates: enough to compile in current Visual Studio, connect to modern IRC servers, and display correctly on high-resolution screens. Microsoft also included AI-assisted modernization experiments showing what a more thorough update might look like. Microsoft is inviting developers, historians, and retro computing enthusiasts to explore and build on it further. One footnote worth mentioning: Comic Chat used rules-based tone detection to pick character expressions based on what you typed. That's a long way from generative AI, but it's the same basic idea — software trying to read the emotional register of a conversation. It just did it with lookup tables instead of a language model. ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@baz14** · 0 upvotes > MS opened ancient versions of DOS, then the IRC client from 1990. Maybe in 100 years they'll open Win XP. 😁 > > If a company stops supporting it or shuts down, as a matter of respect for users, it should be fully open code. > > If you can't / don't want to support it, open it up to the community for self-support. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [xkcd-font: The xkcd font](https://daily.dev/posts/xkcd-font-the-xkcd-font-1gxnchsv2) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#microsoft](https://daily.dev/tags/microsoft), [#c++](https://daily.dev/tags/c++) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-open-sources-comic-chat-the-1990s-irc-client-that-invented-comic-sans-f6wohvgps) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Microsoft open-sources Comic Chat, the 1990s IRC client that invented Comic Sans","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-open-sources-comic-chat-the-1990s-irc-client-that-invented-comic-sans-f6wohvgps","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-open-sources-comic-chat-the-1990s-irc-client-that-invented-comic-sans-f6wohvgps"},"datePublished":"2026-07-16T16:43:39.433Z","dateModified":"2026-07-17T08:00:44.257Z","description":"Microsoft has open-sourced Comic Chat, the 1996 IRC client that rendered conversations as comic panels and was the birthplace of Comic Sans. 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Maybe in 100 years they’ll open Win XP. 😁\nIf a company stops supporting it or shuts down, as a matter of respect for users, it should be fully open code.\nIf you can’t / don’t want to support it, open it up to the community for self-support.","datePublished":"2026-07-17T09:58:40.360Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/f6wOHvGPs#c-uJqzWcfFy","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Baz","url":"https://daily.dev/baz14","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocKd2iFU8YS4sV-rBJptuYSF8EHeQnm23N_dcXE1uON7_GMIlZg=s96-c"}}]} ```