There is also a growing number of "graphical" chat programs. Unlike text chat rooms, they are based in 2D or 3D worlds which are much easier to move around in. In text chat rooms, you have to type particular commands to move to a different room, but in graphical chat rooms you can move simply by clicking in different parts of the room or by using arrow keys.

And in graphical chat you can adopt an "avatar" or graphical image to represent yourself and express your personality in the chat rooms. Some of these systems even let you create custom avatars for various situations (such as a waving avatar to greet someone who has just logged on and entered the chat room).

MS Comic Chat 2.5 (for Windows/NT) comes on the oceanfree.net CD-Rom. It works within Internet Explorer and uses comicbook-style characters. Sometimes you may want to switch between text mode and comic mode for various reasons. If a room is extremely active, it may be hard to follow a conversation in comic mode. You can switch easily between the two by selecting the icon on the MS Chat tool bar.

Another popular chat system using avatars is The Palace