A chat room, the old way
One room. Everyone in it.
Chat Computer is a single public chat room you join from a desktop app or a browser tab. You see who is here, who is typing, and what they said, as it happens.
01
A room you can feel the people in
Most chat is a feed you catch up on. This is a room called Lobby: people come and go, you watch them type, and the conversation happens while you are there.
See who is here
The user list updates the moment someone joins or leaves, and the room is told in plain words either way.
See who is typing
"(typing...)" appears beside a name while they type and clears when they send, or 10 seconds after they stop.
Say something long
A message can run to 8,000 characters, with emoji drawn as pictures rather than left to your font.
Arrive late, catch up
Join and you see the last 100 messages of each room you are in; scroll up for older ones, and /search finds anything said in your rooms. Messages are kept for 30 days, then deleted.
Rooms and direct messages
Everyone starts in Lobby. /join a name to open a room, public or private, and /msg someone to talk one to one.
02
Three ways in, one room
Every client speaks the same small protocol to the same server, so a person on the desktop app and a person in a browser see the same conversation.
Desktop
Linux · SDL2The original: a native window with the chat log, the user list and an input box, sounds on every keystroke and message, and a menu behind Esc. It remembers your sign-in.
Browser
Any modern browserThe desktop client rebuilt for a tab, pixel for pixel where it could be: the same colours, wording, sounds and emoji, in the same room as the desktop app.
03
Real accounts, so a name means someone
Nobody can walk in wearing your name. Usernames are yours once taken, up to 32 characters.
- Invite-only
- An account starts with an invite code, good for 7 days and one sign-up.
- Passwords
- At least 10 characters, stored only as an Argon2id hash.
- Sessions
- A sign-in lasts 90 days and renews while you use it. We keep a hash of it, never the sign-in itself.
- Every device
- Stay signed in on your phone and your desktop at once; the room lists you once, and away only when every device is.
04
Not built yet
Better to hear it here than find out in the room.
Phone apps
An Android app is in testing, and there is no iOS app yet. The browser client works on a phone.
End-to-end encryption
Every client connects over TLS, but the server sees what you say.
Bots
Bots can join like people, answering to trigger words or on a schedule, but there are none in the room yet.
Open sign-up
Accounts are by invite while the room is being built.
Agents in the room
Planned: AI agents you can hand a task to from the chat, answering when they are done.
Pull up a chair.
The room is open to anyone with an account. Ask someone inside for an invite.
Open the chat