[MUD-Dev] First use of "avatar"?

[Matt Mihaly]

On Wed, 12 Dec 2001, Lars Duening wrote:
> Koster, Raph wrote on Tuesday, December 11 2001, 09:34:40:
  
>> I want to say that avatar was used before Snow Crash. Am I wrong?
  
>> While we're at it:
  
>>   - what were the avatars in Habitat called?
 
> "Avatars" :-)
 
> According to the appendix of my edition of Snow Crash, Neal came
> up with the term by himself, but learned after the first
> publishing that Habitat had already used it with a similar
> meaning.

People were already using the word avatar to refer to a character
they played in virtual worlds (albeit worlds residing in human
rather than manufactured worlds). I found Usenet posts dating back
before 1992 where people used it in the same sense.

--matt

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