Microsoft has released the original source code for Comic Chat, the 1996 IRC client that turned chat conversations into comic-book panels featuring avatars, speech bubbles, and expressions. The release, announced by Scott Hanselman on July 16, 2026, puts the historic codebase on GitHub ahead of the software’s 30th anniversary in August.

The raw code behind the comic panels

Comic Chat was never a typical chat program. Instead of a scrolling text transcript, it assigned illustrated characters to every person in a chat room and laid out messages in a sequential comic strip. Users could choose poses and emotional expressions mid-conversation, adding a visual layer to text-heavy Internet Relay Chat. The client’s most famous legacy—the Comic Sans typeface—was originally designed for those speech bubbles.

The newly published repository contains the original source code, not a modern rebuild. It’s a snapshot of mid-1990s Windows development: C and C++ files, resource scripts, and legacy project formats that predate Visual Studio as we know it. The code is unlocked for study, modification, and preservation, but it doesn’t magically turn Comic Chat into a supported product. Anyone expecting a download-and-double-click installer will be disappointed—this is raw material for developers and historians.

What this actually changes for you

For everyday Windows users

If you remember Comic Chat from the MSN days or simply want to see what all the fuss was about, the source release doesn’t give you a ready-to-run app. However, enterprising community members may quickly produce pre-built binaries. When they do, be careful: the original client knows nothing about modern TLS encryption, secure authentication, or memory protections. Running it on a public IRC network without inspection and hardening could expose your system to risks that contemporary apps have long since addressed.

For the purely curious, the repository is a museum. You can browse the code, look at how the panel layout engine works, and read the original character definition files. It’s a window into how Microsoft experimented with consumer UI long before Slack and Discord settled on more pedestrian chat layouts.

For system administrators and IT professionals

Comic Chat’s open-sourcing doesn’t create a new attack surface for your network—unless an employee decides to run a freshly compiled vintage IRC client. The bigger takeaway is historical context. Comic Chat was once the default chat client for MSN and shipped as part of Internet Explorer distributions. It represents an era when Microsoft moved aggressively into online communication spaces, often with unconventional approaches. Understanding that lineage helps explain why Windows has ingrained legacy networking components and why sandboxing untrusted applications remains a perennial concern.

If someone in your organization asks about using the open-sourced Comic Chat for internal communication, the answer should be a polite but firm “no” until a community-vetted, security-reviewed fork emerges—and even then, IRC lacks the compliance and management features modern workplaces require.

For developers and tinkerers

This is where the open-source release gets genuinely exciting. The codebase is a rare, complete example of a commercial Windows networking application from the Windows 95 era. It uses WinSock directly, implements custom drawing with GDI, and includes a scripting interface called Comic Chat Script that let users automate actions in chat rooms. Developers interested in retrocomputing, protocol implementation, or just unconventional UI design can learn a lot from reading how the original team structured the program.

Porting it to modern toolchains will require work. The code likely assumes 32-bit execution, ANSI code pages, and now-deprecated APIs. A successful rebuild may need adjustments for contemporary compilers and linkers. But the open-source license means anyone can fork, modernize, and even extend the concept. The panel layout algorithm, character animation system, and expression engine are now available for integration into new IRC clients or experimental chat interfaces.

How we arrived at this moment

Comic Chat’s journey from research prototype to open-source treasure is a three-decade arc.

  • 1996: Birth of the panel chat. Developer David Kurlander, working in Microsoft Research, built an IRC client that didn’t just relay text but rendered it as a comic strip. Microsoft officially released Comic Chat on August 13, 1996. It came bundled with Internet Explorer and later became the default chat experience for MSN. The client introduced millions of home users to IRC—and to Comic Sans, which was commissioned specifically for the application’s word balloons.
  • Late 1990s: Renamed to Microsoft Chat. The tool evolved into Microsoft Chat and remained a bundled component through the Windows 98 era. As MSN Messenger gained traction in the early 2000s, Comic Chat faded from mainstream use, though IRC diehards kept it alive in niche communities.
  • 2010s onward: Preservation efforts. Without access to the source, fans created artwork, reverse-engineered protocols, and pleaded with Microsoft to release the code. The application became a cult classic in retrocomputing circles and a frequent subject of “what if” articles.
  • 2026: Open-sourcing for the 30th anniversary. Scott Hanselman, a developer advocate at Microsoft known for championing legacy projects, announced the release on GitHub. The company framed it as a celebration of the software’s 30th anniversary and an acknowledgement of its role in internet history. The code is now available under a permissive license, inviting the community to carry the torch.

What you can do right now

  1. Visit the repository. The source code lives at github.com/microsoft/ComicChat (official name pending confirmation). Browse the files, read the readme, and star the project if you want to follow updates.
  2. If you’re a developer: Clone the repo and attempt a build. You’ll need a build environment that can handle vintage C/C++ projects—think Visual Studio 6.0 or a suitably configured modern toolchain with backwards compatibility shims. The community will likely share build scripts in the coming weeks.
  3. If you just want to run it: Wait. Wait for a trusted community member to produce a pre-compiled binary. When one appears, verify checksums if provided, scan it with antivirus, and run it in a sandboxed environment first. Better yet, run it on a retro Windows 95 or 98 virtual machine, where it belongs.
  4. If you’re a historian or writer: The repository preserves more than code. The comment headers, variable names, and author notations offer insight into Microsoft’s engineering culture in the mid-1990s. Consider contributing documentation, bug reports, or anecdotal recollections to help contextualize the source.
  5. Exercise caution on live networks. The original Comic Chat implementation of IRC is decades removed from current security expectations. Assume the client is vulnerable to buffer overflows and other exploits. Do not connect to untrusted IRC servers without first reviewing the networking code and applying mitigations.

The road ahead

The open-sourcing of Comic Chat is unlikely to spark a mass return to 1990s-style IRC. But it does open the door for creative revivals. We could see a modern Electron-based wrapper that uses the original panel-rendering engine, or an integration with Discord as a novelty bot. The Comic Sans connection alone guarantees renewed attention: the font remains one of the most recognized—and debated—typefaces in computing.

Microsoft has not indicated any plans to update Comic Chat or release it as a product. This is purely a community gift. How far the community takes it depends on the interest of the developers who now hold the keys to a strange, wonderful piece of internet history.