The Palace (computer program)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Palace | |
| Developer: | Time Warner Interactive, independent developers |
|---|---|
| OS: | Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Linux, and Microsoft Windows |
| Use: | Virtual Community, client |
| License: | Proprietary |
| Website: | http://www.thepalace.com/ |
The Palace is a software program used to access graphical chat rooms called palaces in which users may interact with one another using graphical avatars overlayed on a graphical backdrop. The software concept was originally created by Jim Bumgardner, an employee of Time Warner Interactive, in 1996.
While there is no longer any official support for the program, many "palace" based chatrooms still exist on the internet. Palace clients and servers are available for Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Linux, and Microsoft Windows.
Contents |
[edit] Concept and design
The Palace has a flexible avatar system that allows users to combine small, partially transparent images to create a unique look for themselves. Once the member has created an avatar to represent herself or himself, the member can pick up various pieces of clothing or other items, such as hats, handbags, cans of soda, candy bars, bicycles, or hand tools. The Dollz that can be seen in many places around the internet today originated in The Palace.
By default, users are represented by spherical emoticons, but can also wear bitmaps called props. User messages appear as chat bubbles above their avatar, similar to those seen in comic books. Each room in a palace is represented by a large image that serves as a backdrop for the users. By clicking in certain areas in a room called doors, users can travel to different rooms. In some rooms, users are allowed to paint on the backdrop using a simple suite of tools similar to oekaki.
As in many other virtual worlds, prestige is shown through the intricacy of the user's avatar. Some users sign on with two or more clients in order to blanket their avatar across a larger area to give themselves more room to express themselves.
[edit] History
The Palace was created by Jim Bumgardner, an employee of Time Warner Interactive, in 1996. Bumgardner incorporated many features of Idaho, an in-house authoring tool he had previously developed for making multimedia CD-ROMs. One of the latter features of Idaho was iptScrae, a Forth-like programming language. The name is a play on the word "script", in Pig Latin. One of the unique features of the Palace for its time, was that the server software was given away for free, and ran on consumer PCs, rather than being housed in a central location. This is one of the reasons why Palace servers are still running today.
The Palace was originally created as a collaborative effort between Bumgardner and Imagen, an internet peer group. The source code, along with that of its associated server software were altered and corrected for bugs through Imagen and Bumgardner, before being bought by Communities.com.
The Palace was the subject of a number of sales between companies until 2001, when it was purchased by Open Text Corporation as part of a bankruptcy settlement. The software is currently unsupported by Open Text or any of its previous owners, and many members of the community now consider the software abandonware and provide support for existing versions on various unofficial web sites.
There are no official Palace software developments but two groups are working on alternative clients; the Pawnsoft created PalaceChat for Mac OS X and the BHLabs produced Phalanx Visual Chat.
Like many projects there are some drawbacks to the new clients and many users have chosen to remain with the older clients for as long as their operating systems support it.
Additionally there is a potential (non compatible) successor called iP with updated and enhanced features.
[edit] Trivia
- Palace chat rooms popularity peaked around 1999-2000 when metal band Korn had there own palace chat room you could download from korn.com. The download has been disabled for a few years now and is no longer available on the web-site.
