Hypercommunication Network Fujitsu Habitat is a chat with images formerly operated by Fujitsu Limited. Fujitsu calls it visual communication.
Overview.
Four different services were offered. Fujitsu Habitat, Habitat II Elysium, Habitat II Graceville and J-Chat.
Fujitsu Habitat
Originally operated by Lucasfilm in the USA, Fujitsu purchased the licence for Lucasfilm's Habitat and began offering it in Japan; test operations began at the end of 1989 as software exclusive to FM TOWNS, and the service officially started on 10 February 1990. This date was designated as "Fujitsu Habitat Founding Day". Client software was subsequently provided for the company's FMR series, NEC's PC-9800 series and Macintosh; it was carried over to J-Chat, so there were also many Macintosh users. However, support was limited to OS 9. This was a service exclusively for Nifty Serve members, where users operated 2D avatars and chatted in a virtual town, and was a revolutionary departure from text-only chat at the time. However, in addition to the need for specialised software, the communication speed of FENICS-ROAD2 (2400 bps), the PC communication connection for Nifty Serve at the time, was slow and the avatar's movements were restricted (e.g. the avatar's facial expressions could not be changed freely). The number of users was sluggish due to a combination of factors.
- (Wikipedia.org)