Datasets:

Csplk
/

THE.ASCII.ART.EMPORIUM

It was the dollar sign's little brother, and lived on comic books covers and in
newspaper advertisements and on pay phones and wherever anything was being sold
for less than a buck. It was a popular punctuation symbol—no question mark, or
dollar sign, certainly, but just behind the * in popularity, and I daresay well
ahead of #, &, and the now Internet-hot @. It owned an unshifted spot on the
typewriter keyboard, just to the right of the semicolon, and was part of every
third grader's working knowledge.

In the late 1990s, you don't see many cent signs. Why? Because hardly
anything costs less than a dollar anymore? Actually, the demise of the cent
sign has little to do with inflation, and everything to do with computers. And
therein lies a tale.

In the 1960s a disparate group of American computer manufacturers (basically,
everyone but IBM) got together and agreed on an encoding standard that became
known as ASCII ("ass-key"—The American Standard Code for Information
Interchange). This standard simply assigned a number to each of the various
symbols used in written communication (e.g., A-Z, a-z, 0-9, period, comma). A
standard made it possible for a Fortran program written for a Univac machine to
make sense to a programmer (and a Fortran compiler) on a Control Data computer.
And for a Teletype terminal to work with a Digital computer, and so on.

So-called text files, still in widespread use today, consist of sequences of
these numbers (or codes) to represent letters, spaces, and end-of-lines. Text
editors, for example, the Windows Notepad application, display ASCII codes as
lines of text on your screen so that you can read and edit them. Similarly, an
ASCII keyboard spits out the value 65 when you type a capital 'A,' 65 being the
ASCII code for 'A.'

The committee decided on a seven bit code; this allowed for twice as many
characters as existing six bit standards, and permitted a parity bit on eight
bit tape. So there were 128 slots to dole out, and given the various
non-typographic computing agendas to attend to, it was inevitable that some
common symbols, including several that had always been on typewriter keyboards,
wouldn't make the cut. (The typewriter layout had certain obvious failings in
computer applications, for example: overloading the digit 1 and lower case L,
so it couldn't be blindly adopted.)

Three handy fractions were cut: ¼ ½ ¾. This makes sense, especially when
you consider that the ASCII committee was composed of engineers. I'm sure they
thought, in their engineer's way, "Why have ¼ but not 1/3? And if we have 1/3,
then why not 1/5? Or 3/32?" Similarly, the committee apparently found $0.19 an
acceptable, if somewhat obtuse, way of expressing the price of a Bic pen. At
any rate, the popular and useful cent sign didn't make it.

And so the cent sign was off keyboards, terminals, and printers. Not that many
people noticed right away. The companies behind ASCII sold big, expensive
computers that were used to run businesses, and few cared that there wasn't a
cent sign character on one's new line printer. Heck, if your printer could
handle lower-case letters, you were state of the art.

But when personal computers began to appear in the late 1970s, the primary
application driving their adoption was word processing. These new small
computers used the ASCII standard—after all, that's what standards are for. By
the millions, typewriter keyboards (with ¢) were traded in for Apple IIs and
IBM PCs (without ¢). While it's true that the cent sign was ultimately made
part of other larger encoding standards, and is possible to create at modern
PCs with a little effort—the damage had been done. Without a cent key in front
of them, writers of books, newspapers, magazines, and advertisements made do
without. And over time, $0.19 began to look like the right way to say 19¢. In
another few years the cent sign will look as alien as those strange S's our
forefathers were using when they wrote the constitution.

Appendix S

With a little effort, ASCII can express more than words. Presented for your
amusement: Bart, Homer, and Marge Simpson.

|\/\/\/|
| |
| |
| (o)(o)
C _)
| ,___|
| /
/____\

_______
/ \
\/\/ |
| (o)(o)
C .---_)
| |.___|
| \__/
/______\
/______/ \
(####)
(#######)
(#########)
(#########)
(#########)
(#########)
(#########)
(#########)
(########)
(#########)
(#########)
(#########)
(o)(o)(##)
,_C (##)
/____, (##)
\ (#)
| |
oooooo

Appendix E ASCII Printable Character Set

The cent sign's omission was especially unfair when you go down the list and
consider the characters that did get in, including several that had never had a
role in our language. For example, backslash: \—just like a slash, only
backwards. That's not confusing at all. Hell no. Then there's the accent
characters that represented ASCII's half-hearted effort to support European
languages: The grave: ` (backward accent). The tilde: ~ The circumflex: ^
And six slots went to the exotic parentheses sets, beloved by programmers but
hardly anyone else: [ ], { }, <>. When was the last time you saw one of
these symbols in the newspaper?

Here's what the ASCII committee came up with. I've skipped slots 0-31, because
they're "control characters"--codes without a printable equivalent. I will say
that there's lots of waste in the first 32 positions—-many made ancient
printers and communications devices jump through obscure hoops. A few are still
in use, including the tab (code 9) and end-of-line characters (10 and 13)*.

Value Character
32 The good old space! Often overlooked, and hard to draw (except
maybe with a Lindy pen), butwithoutitstuffwouldbeveryhardtoread.
33 ! Without the exclamation point, email and chat rooms would be
quieter places. Should be a law about using more than one per
paragraph, and I think there is a law about using more than one in
a row!!!
34 " Thanks, but it would've been even nicer to have true open and close
double quotes. There don't seem to have been any typographers on
the committee.
35 # Pound sign gets in and cent sign doesn't? A miscarriage of justice.
36 $ No way was this power symbol going to be left out.
37 % Had it made the cut, perhaps ¢ would have gone right here, right
next to the dollar sign.
38 & Ma Bell was part of the committee, so ampersand was a given.
39 ' Again, it would have been nice to have open and close single
quotes. The ASCII apostrophe is functional, but ugly.
40 (
41 )
42 *
43 +
44 , The comma, punctuation superstar
45 - The hyphen a.k.a. minus sign. Would've been nice to have an
em-dash too.
46 . The period, a.k.a. decimal point, a.k.a. dot, punctuation megastar.
47 / The handy, work-a-day slash. Not to be confused with its evil
twin, backslash.
48 0 The decimal digits are in order (the Committee may have blown it on
the cent sign, but they weren't dummies). Subtract 48 from an ASCII
digit and you have its value.
49 1
50 2
51 3
52 4
53 5
54 6
55 7
56 8
57 9
58 : Did the Committee foresee Emoticons? : )
59 ; . . . I doubt it. ; )
60 < Angle brackets. Useless to most, crucial to programmers for
expressing greater than/less than numerical relationships. -->
They also make cool arrowheads. <--
61 =
62 >
63 ?
64 @ The at sign—90s email superstar, 60's nobody. You had to shift the
cent key to get @ on typewriters.
65 A The 26 uppercase alphabetic characters begin here; the order is
unsurprising. Lowercase begins 32 (not 26) codes later. This is
why simple-minded sort code places words in caps ahead of
lowercase, e.g., "CAT" < "DOG" < "cat" < "dog"
66 B
67 C
68 D
69 E
70 F
71 G
72 H
73 I
74 J
75 K
76 L
77 M
78 N
79 O
80 P
81 Q
82 R
83 S
84 T
85 U
86 V
87 W
88 X
89 Y
90 Z
91 [ Square brackets.
92 \ The infamous backslash. What were they thinking?
93 ]
94 ^ When was the last time you typed this character? Admittedly, it's
handy for drawing up-arrows, but since there's no down arrow, why
bother?
95 _ The underscore. Handy in forms, and programmers_Use_It_To_Create_
An_Illusion_Of_Space where the language doesn't permit a real
space.
96 ` Grave (backward) accent. In this country, obscure in the extreme.
97 a The lower case alphabet starts at 97; each letter has the same
value as its uppercase counterpart plus 32. In binary form,
they're identical, except for a single bit.
98 b
99 c
100 d
101 e
102 f
103 g
104 h
105 i
106 j
107 k
108 l
109 m
110 n
111 o
112 p
113 q
114 r
115 s
116 t
117 u
118 v
119 w
120 x
121 y
122 z
123 { Curly braces. Another programmer-mostly ASCII-ism. Can't get far
in C or its derivatives without them.
124 | The vertical bar. A waste of a slot. You can make perfectly good
boxes with exclamation points.
125 }
126 ~ The tilde. Generally only used by programmers looking for obscure
characters to exploit.
127 DEL Committee member AT&T required this last slot, 111 1111 in binary,
be a control character. You won't see this character in text
files, but it's what a keyboard spits out when you press the delete
key. *60's workhorse Teletype printers required two control
characters to start a new line: a carriage return (ASCII code 13)
to return the print head to the left margin, and a line feed (ASCII
code 10) to roll the paper up a smidge. Over time, Unix computers
standardized on line feed as its text file line delimiter;
Macintosh computers went with carriage return. PC text files
usually contain a matched CR/LF pair. Sigh.

www.CharlieAnderson.com
Since 1998, Your Home for Charlie Anderson Information
Send me email: info@charlieanderson.com

All Content © 1998-2002 Charles R. Anderson
This page was last modified on 11/13/2003

File: academy/history/pc_ascii.txt
https://web.archive.org/web/20041220171512/http://www.acheron.org:80/articles/in
dex.cfm?fuseaction=dsp_article&article=20000519180114H

History of the PC Ascii Scene (As viewed by the eyes of one that lived it.)

by Necromancer, 06-Mar-1998

(Text taken in most part from a previous article in The Product 2, but I had to
update quit a bit of it.)
Ascii Art as an idea coalesced into existence bceause people wanted more. They
wanted more than just your standard Hercules display Atari or your Monochrome
Commodore 64. To meet this demand, one singular artist, whose name is lost to
the annals of history decided to take the plunge. Instead of text, he (or she)
had the ingenuity to use the characters /, \, |, -, _ and whatever else came to
mind to create words. An amazing idea.

And a perfect one. People latched onto this. Anyone that could display text
could display ascii art. It was fast, compact, independant of platform type,
and one group in particular set their sights on it the most, the then-thriving
Amiga scene. It was perfect for Bulletin Board Systems, text-based adventures,
for anything they could think of. Perfect then, and to this day for file
descriptions.

While ascii dominated the Amiga scene, the PC scene was giving birth to an art
medium of their own, ANSI. Colored blocks. Oh, the wonders. But there were
people that weren't satisfied with ANSI, they had seen ascii art, and it had
captivated their imaginations. Some people believe that demand creates supply,
and because of this, ascii was tentatively introduced to the PC scene as an art
form.

Tinyz, a member of the Amiga scene warez group Katharsis, recognized the
demand, and started in on the supply. A one-man art group was created by Tinyz,
and this introduced what had long been Amiga-only art (and previously Commodore
64, but not to the extent of the Amiga scene) into the PC art scene.
Katharsis!Ascii was implemented in March of 1994. Tinyz soon found kindred
spirits, and more artists joined Katharsis!Ascii, now known as plain Katharsis,
or KTS. Others tried to duplicate Tinyz and the way he brought ascii art to the
scene, but to no avail. Tinyz was the first to establish a true ascii-only art
group in the PC art scene. Previous to Tinyz, there were only a few ascii
artists that were as known as Tinyz, one of those being Piromaniak of TRiBE.But
no one had the grip on the proverbial ascii testicles in the PC scene that
KTS!Ascii did. That is, until Remorse rose out of the dirt and mooned Katharsis
with it's hairy collective buttocks.

I, along with Necronite (then of ex-Union, Shiver) felt that our art wasn't the
quality KTS was looking for, so we decided to start our own ascii art group,
dubbed Remorse, and started in October of 1994. Originally, it was meant to be
in homage to Tinyz and KTS, but it didn't quite turn out that way. Remorse
quickly gained members that produced quality art, and was KTS's first actual
competition. Oh, RMRS and KTS didn't realize it at first, but within a few
months, Remorse spurred KTS's release of "THE-NME.TXT," which was one giant
"I'm better than you" directed towards Remorse.

While the Remorse death/rebirth drama was being acted out (I'll exclude that
from this -- you can find the history of Remorse elsewhere), several groups
decided to follow in the footsteps of Remorse and KTS. But it wasn't until the
year-long torpor of Remorse and the birth of Whodini's love child, Trank, that
any of these groups started to thrive. With Trank, Whodini recruited most of
the quality artists from the then-defunct Remorse and several new faces. A few
of the members of these new groups started imitating the style of ts, K-Spiff,
KXMode, Mr. Kite and Lord Jazz. With this wide-spread imitation came a division
to the ascii scene: Newschool and oldschool.

Newschool was more than just the use of the standard /, \, |, -, and _. It
didn't limit itself to merely an outline, it went a step further to add filling
and shading. Several artists arose that awed the scene with their innovation.
Artists such as Asphixia (aka J. Hale), Killa Hertz, Nuremberg, later on
several artists from groups like s0ap (Sons of Ascii Prophets) and Noname,
artists like Mr. Self Destruct, Discyple, Cain, countless others, all showing
creativity and talent in the way they designed their asciis.

Unfortunately, the times of the great ascii art era appeared to have waned. Not
many groups thrive still, Remorse is still around, being the longest lived
group, along with Odelay and a few other smaller ones. The Amiga ascii scene
also is not thriving as much as it once was, many of the older, once
highly-active artists are no longer participating as they used to. The once
deemed unstoppable momentum of the ascii community appears to be slowly winding
down to a halt.

But have faith. We will prevail. We were here before you, and we will be here
long after you. Ascii art has existed since before people used hard drives,
back when you had to plug your Commodore 64 into the TV. It's not just an
artform, it's an expression, a style. The creative process can never be stifled
completely, and we will overcome.

Long live ascii.

File: academy/history/ascii_history_jgs.gmi
=> https://web.archive.org/web/20091028050914/http://www.geocities.com/spunk1111/history.htm

(note: this document was converted from html to text/gemini by Michael Lazar on 2021/07/18)

# The History of ASCII (Text) Art

DEVELOPMENT OF (ASCII) TEXT ART:

* Text pictures are created by hand.
* Concrete poetry is created with aide of typesetting and the early typewriter (also called "typography").
* Typewriter art is first documented in 1898; becomes an art form.
* Radio teletype (RTTY) art is created using the Baudot 5-bit code.
* Paper-tape art and punch card art are created as early forms of 'computer' art.
* The ASCII code is created in the early 1960s and is standardized in 1968.
* Early ASCII art - the first years of the Internet, BBS, and underground ASCII /ANSI art "groups".
* Cousins of ASCII art -- ANSI art, America Online's 'MACRO art', and mIRC pop-ups
* ASCII art today and in the future...

## PICTURES AS "TEXT"

ASCII art and other "keyboard" art uses basic text characters to create a picture. Long ago, the written word did not consist of "text". Ironically, the first written documents consisted of pictures which represented ideas and objects-- not letters or text characters.

=>./ascii_history_jgs/hieroglyphics.jpg Hieroglyphics on Tomb in Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt (www.corbis.com/Bojan Brecelj Image ID:BJ001933)

Note the hieroglyphics on a tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt.

## TEXT AS PICTURES - HAND DRAWN

Over time, the written word developed into symbols which looked more like present-day text. The very first text art pictures were drawn by hand. Creative people used ornamental penmanship to create wondrously beautiful documents and pictures. The monastic monks created breath-taking manuscripts which incorporated letters of text into their art. However, there were few other pieces of art that were made from text characters.

=>./ascii_history_jgs/rcanterbury.jpg Illuminated Manuscript, Canterbury Cathedral Canterbury, England, UK (www.corbis.com/Angelo Hornak Image ID: AH001438)

Illuminated Manuscript, Canterbury Cathedral Canterbury, England, UK ca. 1971-1996 An illuminated letter R legenda sanctorium at the beginning of an illuminated story of Saint Ipolitus from a manuscript at Canterbury Cathedral.

Individuals continued creating text art images by hand. During the Korean War (circa 1950), a very talented Korean named 'Gwang Hyuk Lee' made a hand drawn text picture depicting Jesus. He used the entire text in the Bible's "Book of John" to create this multi-colored image. Rumor has it that he was killed by the North Korean communists for creating this 16" x 20" picture. This work of art is beautiful and created entirely by hand! It must've taken an incredibly long time to complete.

=>./ascii_history_jgs/bookofjohn.jpg Gwang Hyuk Lee's hand drawn - "Book of John" - black & white image
=>./ascii_history_jgs/bookofjohn-color.jpg Gwank Hyuk Lee's hand drawn "Book of John" - color image

I don't have any further information about this example of hand drawn text art-- I've been told that a poster of this artwork used to be available but I don't know where it can be found. ( thank you Ennis Trimble for sending the images )

Shaped texts became popular as part of the concrete and visual poetry movement.
French poet and surrealist, Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), used the shaped text in his handwritten visual word poems. These visual word poems were given the term "calligrams" (1917).

According to the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry:

http://www.library.miami.edu/treasure/chapters/chaptr17.html

> The calligrams of Apollinaire represent an important and original landmark in the history of visual and shaped poetry. These calligraphic poems may be considered as one of the precursors of modern concrete poetry.

I will post an example of Apollinaire's calligram soon (when I find one). In the meantime, enjoy two hand-written visual poems created by my 8 year old son. They are entitled "Rainbow" and "Dimind" (Diamond).

=> ./ascii_history_jgs/typographyian.jpg hand drawn typographical poems by my 8 year old son

## TEXT AS PICTURES - TYPOGRAPHY

People were relieved from writer's cramp once mechanical methods to create text were created. The Chinese are generally recognized as the first group of people to develop the stamp/ink printing process (2nd Century AD) and the movable-type printing process (11th Century AD).

It wasn't until the year 1450 that Johannes Gutenberg (along with businessman, Johann Fust and calligrapher, Peter Schoeffer) invented the printing press in Germany. It was based on a wine-press design and could print about 300 pages a day. As a result, books were produced more quickly and for lower cost. The art of typography could begin!

A nice example of typography is from the 1865 book, Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). The following tail of a mouse is from Chapter III, "A Caucus Race and a Long Tale":

```
"It _is_ a long tail, certainly," said Alice, looking
down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; "but why do you
call it sad?" And she kept on puzzling about it while the
Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the tale was
something like this:----"Fury said to
a mouse, That
he met in the
house, `Let
us both go
to law: _I_
will prose-
cute _you_.--
Come, I'll
take no de-
nial: We
must have
the trial;
For really
this morn-
ing I've
nothing
to do.'
Said the
mouse to
the cur,
`Such a
trial, dear
sir. With
no jury
or judge,
would
be wast-
ing our
breath.'
`I'll be
judge,
I'll be
jury,'
said
cun-
ning
old
Fury:
`I'll
try
the
whole
cause,
and
con-
demn
you to
death'."
```

Alice in Wonderland was published a few years before the typewriter was invented. Therefore, it can be considered as one of the first printed text art creations.

Concrete poetry and typography continues today as evidenced by this modern 1997 example created by 'Donovan' (Xdonovan@misslink.net ICQ#: 812836):

```
The Dolphins' Way,
In Me Aspirations of the living
sea The dolphins do move within me The aura of
their soul, I feel deep down To be in the water
and not on ground Sifting through the
ocean, an expressing show Communi-
cation of a song and a blow Pro-
tecting even those not of their
kind They ask nothing in return,
they do not mind The most gracious
and unselfish of all that wander I
wish to swim with them, nothing could
be fonder The dolphins mean so much
to me, you see I need to thank them,
for showing us how to be (Donovan 1997)
http://www.misslink.net/donovan/
```

## TEXT AS PICTURES -- TYPEWRITER

To many people, Christopher Latham Sholes is considered to be the inventor of the modern typewriter. His first machine was completed in September of 1867. E. Remington & Sons manufactured the typewriter in 1874. The keyboard has changed many times but the basic characters remains. There is an extensive history to the evolution of the typewriter. Visit a very informative web site which identifies the history of the typewriter:

http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/.

Typewriter-Related Links -history, keyboard, fonts, and more
http://xavier.xu.edu:8000/~polt/tw-links.html

Since 1867, people have used the typewriter not only for printing manuscripts but creating works of art. In the 1890s, typewriter manufacturers and secretarial agencies organized public speed typing competitions. They also organized competitions for typewriter drawings. The earliest preserved example of typewriter art was made in 1898 by a woman named Flora Stacey. Not much is known about Flora Stacey except that she was probably a secretary. Her framed picture of a butterfly was published in the October 15th, 1898, edition of Pitman's Phonetic Journal.

The entire rendering of this picture was created with the typewriter -- yes, even the butterfly! The butterfly is composed of brackets, hyphens, points, oblique strokes, a single asterisk, and several "o"s.

=> ./ascii_history_jgs/typebutterfly.jpg typewriter butterfly

The journal commented:

> "We think it will be generally admitted that the illustration is in the highest degree creditable to the artistic ability, skill and patience of the lady, and to the unique capabilities of the Bar-lock for this class of work. It may be noted that in competitions for typewriter drawings Miss Stacey has been extremely successful.... An outsider, or one unaccustomed to the use of the typewriter, can scarcely realise what an expenditure of time and patience is necessary in order to successfully execute one of these curious drawings. The paper has, of course, to be turned and re-turned, and twisted in a thousand different directions, and each character and letter must strike precisely in the right spot. Often, just as some particular sketch is on the point of completion, a trifling miscalculation, or the accidental depression of the wrong key, will totally ruin it, and the whole thing has to be done over again."

This brief synopsis describes some of the negative and positive aspects of typewriter art. First of all, once a mistake is made, it generally can not be corrected. There are no delete or overwrite keys on a typewriter. Secondly, the positioning of paper can be crucial. One slip and the typewritten picture may be ruined.

There are a number of techniques available to the typewriter artist that are not available to the ASCII keyboard artist. A typewriter artist can manipulate the sheet of paper in various directions and angles. The characters can be spaced in any way -- often overstriking another character or "half-spacing" to achieve a special effect. Typewriter art offers more flexibility and variation than the computer ASCII art. However, ASCII art is much more forgiving.

Typewriter art was a popular art medium in the 1950s to the 1970s. There are many wonderful examples of typewriter art found in Alan Riddell's book, Typewriter Art (London, 1975). Some of the images are colorized by using tinted ink ribbon. Several of the images are abstract. A few of the images are portraits (Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Edinburgh, Gandhi, Winston Churchill, and Henri Chopin). All of the pictures are superb. There is a listing of over 60 typewriter artists who have contributed to this 100+ image collection, one of whom is Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic.

I found the Henri Chopin portrait most clever as the image was created using only the letters of his name "henri chopin". The background of this 1974 image repeatedly spells out "audiopoems". The text artist is Robert Morgan. He created the image as a design for the sleeve of Henri Chopin's record entitled "Audiopoems" -- Tangent Records. (anyone else remember records and record sleeves?)

( View the picture -- notice the overstriking technique that results in shading of the image -- Robert Morgan's "Henri Chopin" )

=> ./ascii_history_jgs/chopin.jpg Robert Morgan's "Henri Chopin

Another fine example of typewriter art was posted on USENET a few years back. A reader found an article in an unnamed magazine (1960) about a man named Guillermo Mendana Olivera. The article states that Mr. Olivera was a stenographer by day in Leon, Spain, and a keyboard artist by night. He used small o's and x's and periods, dashes, and commas to create his typewriter art masterpieces. And each picture took about 70 hours to complete! Incredible!

=> ./ascii_history_jgs/asciibg.gif ascii_bg.gif

(The .gif of the magazine article is posted on the internet at: http://mypage.direct.ca/r/rcrawfor/ascii_bg.gif but I flagrantly copied it. With web sites coming and going, I wanted to make sure that I had this wonderful part of text art history. Good thing too, if you go to that URL, you'll find a big 404 error.)

There are very few books about ASCII art. Most computer art text books deal with modern graphics and programming. Eventually I'd love to put together a publication of my ASCII art creations, information on the history of text art, and the "how-to create" guidelines for ASCII art. (Are there any publishers out there interested in such a project?) In the meantime, you're stuck reading my cyberspace meanderings.

At right, you'll find a listing of typewriter art books that I've been able to identify.

* "Typewriter Art" by Dan Carlinsky (1978, Price Sloan Publishers) ISBN 0843104333
* "Typewriter Art" edited by Alan Riddell (1975, London Magazine Editions) ISBN 0-900626-99-2 (Thank you Andrew Belsey for finding this book and forwarding it to me!)
* "Art Typing" by Nathan Krevolin (1962, Fearon Pittman/MacMillan Publishers) ISBN 0028306104
* "Typewriter Art" by Bob Neill
* "Second Book on Typewriter Art" by Bob Neill (1984, The Weavers Press)

The book, "Art Typing", written by Nathan Krevolin, describes creating images-- mostly text and borders-- with typewriter characters. Many of the pictures are made entirely out of "X"s... For example:

```
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XX XXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XX XXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XX XXXXXXXXX
X X X XXXXX
X XX XX X XXX X X
X XX XX X XXX X X
X X XXX X X
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X
```

This is a house and a tree as illustrated in the 1962 book, "Art Typing"

There is a section on how to make type-written reports, price lists, and menus, as well as how to make a card. (Perhaps a precursor to 'Print Shop'?) Some mention is made of half-spaces and tilting type paper to get a unique look-- neither of which apply to ASCII art. One page identifies 'cartooning' with keyboard characters-- this is the page which reminded me most of today's ASCII art... Here are two of the ten items pictured...

```
*
/
HH
SSSSSS
SSSSSSSS
S )))) S
SS - - SS
SSS o o SSS
SSSS 6 SSSS
SSS __ SSS
SSS SSS
W W
WW WWW
WWWW WWWW
WWWWWWWWWW

XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
(__________)XXXXXX
( ___ ___ XXXXXX
o/ o XXXXX
( / XXXXX
/___) XXXXX
( XXXX
( ____ ) XXX
( XX
( ) X
( ) *
( ) ***
*

http://www.dataweb.net/~mic/typewriterart/cat.htm
Typewriter Art by Bob Neill - Persian Cat
```

Two cartoon characters from the 1962 book, "Art Typing".

## TEXT AS PICTURES -- TELETYPE (RTTY)

Similar text images were broadcast via Radio Teletype (RTTY). RTTY is a machine-to-machine method of communication which takes place over radio or telephone lines. Its purpose is not for text art transmissions, but for text communication between operators. The teletypewriter (or teleprinter) was invented in the early 1900s. The largest manufacturer of the teleprinter in the United States was the Teletype Corporation. The term "teletype" is used to refer to the teleprinter. However the word "teletype" is actually a trademark of the AT&T Teletype Corporation (much like how the word "xerox" took over the copying machine industry). The radio teleprinter became popular with the public after World War II when surplus teletype machines became available at a reasonable cost. These large machines provided a keyboard for input and a paper roll for printed output. Video monitors didn't become feasible until the mid-1970s. Even today, there are many active RTTY operators and clubs.

RTTY operators (ham operators) have used various codes to transmit messages. These codes include BCD, EBCDIC, Morgan code, and Baudot code. However RTTY transmissions typically used the five-bit, 32 character Baudot code. Initially, RTTY did not use seven-bit ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). ASCII was not standardized until 1968. There are differences between Baudot and ASCII. Differences include bit-size and number of characters allowed. The Baudot code uses numbers, upper case letters, and some punctuation characters. It does not allow for lower case letters. The ASCII code uses upper and lower case letters, numbers, and more of the "standard" punctuation characters.

There are, of course, other differences between the two codes. For a more technical explanation, visit George W. Henry Jr.'s web site. George Henry (K9GWT) has put together a paper which describes the differences between the two codes. It provides some definitions for RTTY terms and examines the various interfacing standards used with ASCII and Baudot terminals: http://fido.wps.com/ITA/index.html Even though most radio amateurs In the United States use the Baudot code, they have been authorized by the FCC to use ASCII as well as the older Baudot code for RTTY communications. This took effect in March of 1980.

Several RTTY enthusiasts have started to translate Baudot code to ASCII. If you have some paper tapes of Baudot/ RTTY art which need to be converted, you can find a program to transform them at: http://fido.wps.com/Baudot/index.html

The text art images sent in the ham radio community consist of capital letters and are sent on long paper tapes. RTTY is slow. Transmissions are sent at 45 baud -- 50 baud is standard in New Zealand. Compare that to the 53,000 baud modem connections that we're using with our computers today! A large RTTY art image could take an hour to transmit. The speed of the RTTY transmission is approximately 60 -100 words per minute. To get an idea of what it would look like, view one of the JAVA applets that simulates an RTTY transmission at http://www.megalink.net/~n1rct/sta/onair.html. (URL no longer valid 8/00)I I would imagine that watching an RTTY art image materialize line-by-line would be quite mesmerizing.

RTTY Home page and History
http://www.rtty.com

RTTY Information
http://www.teleport.com/~nb6z/rtty.htm

Teleprinter Museum
http://www.peine.net/telex/index.htm

=> https://web.archive.org/web/20091028050914/http://www.rtty.com/history/index.htm History of RTTY and Major Contributors - When and where and how it started, and how it advanced and changed over the years. Stories and short biographies of those individuals whose efforts advanced the hobby and made it better for others.

According to a chapter in the "RTTY Handbook", text images have been sent via teletypewriter as early as 1923. However, I have not discovered any of this "old" RTTY art. From what I have found, the text images appeared frequently on radio teletype in the 1960s and the 1970s. They were sent from ham operator to ham operator via radio transmissions. I've been told that there was an article about RTTY art in an early 1960s issue of "73 Magazine" -- the publication for RTTY enthusiasts. I've had no such luck in locating it -- yet.

Many current ham operators agree that a gentleman named Don Royer is one of the foremost creators of RTTY art. He signs his work with his ham operator identification, WA6PIR. The picture at left is one of his many, many RTTY art creations. Don has been a strong advocate for RTTY art and has organized RTTY art contests. Due to illness, Don has not made recent text pictures.

```
M. .:M
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F A N G -- WA6PIR
```

To view more of Don Royer's amazing work, please visit George Hutchison's (W7KSJ) RTTY Art Gallery. You will also find plenty more Teletype art pictures. Most of them were recovered from paper tape and converted from Baudot to ASCII. If you are JAVA enabled, be sure to see George's RTTY art viewer. It is an awesome applet to experience.

Another source of RTTY/Baudot art can be found at Bob Roehrig's web site.. The first link will take you to an index that links to over 100 Baudot art pictures. You'll recognize the ham operator ID# of Don Royer on several of them!

Collection of Baudot / RTTY Art:
http://www.wps.com/ITA/Bob-Roehrig/
http://www.wps.com/ITA/Bob-Roehrig2/

More of Don Royer's pics... (GIF'd)
http://www2.ari.net/ajr/rtty/9710rl.html

Another interesting web site that focuses on radio teletype artwork from the 1960's and 1970's can be found at the Jefferson Computer Museum web site. The subtopic, Ancient Alphabetic Art, highlights teletype artwork from the1960s and the 1970s. The webmaster, John Foust, has collected and posted numerous works from this era. You can also find information regarding outdated computer systems. It is definitely worth a look!

A copy of an early text art transmission (perhaps RTTY?) was submitted by
Charles Struble <strube@inetnebr.com>. He states:

> "In 1969, as a young Marine, I was stationed in a CommCenter on Okinawa (3rdFSR) and we composed and sent this out to a slug of military installations. I decided to reproduce it and put it up hoping maybe someone remembers it or even better, is listed on it. If so, I'd sure like to hear from ya." -Charles Struble strube@inetnebr.com

See "USMC" for the entire message

Here is another early computer art image. To be honest, I don't know if it is RTTY or not -- supposedly it is. To me, it llooks as though it might be too wide for teletype paper. But what do I know? This image was found at Jim's Computer Garage Museum (http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw/jcgm-vcfii.html (URL no longer active 8/00) and is copyrighted© to James Willing: Mona Lisa image

=> ./ascii_history_jgs/asciimona.jpg Mona Lisa image

(Thanks Jim for letting me use it!)

## PAPER TAPE / PUNCH CARD ART

Punch cards and punched paper tape were ways that information could be stored and rebroadcast. Teleprinter messages could be received on tape and then be resent to other teleprinters by using a taper reader. I haven't seen artwork created from punched paper tape, but I do remember seeing pictures made with punched cards. The holes were punched in strategic locations so that when held to the light, the cards displayed an image. The card I recall seeing was that of a Christmas tree. Alas, it wasn't mine and it has long since disappeared. I welcome e-mail from people who remember this art and might have an example of punch card art in their attic or basement!

=> ./ascii_history_jgs/papertape.jpg example of computer punch tape

> "Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate"

## ASCII and ANSI CODE

There are many sites on the Internet that thoroughly describe what ASCII is all about. I will not go into great technical detail. However I will list a few web pages that have additional and detailed information about ASCII.
To begin, ASCII is an acronym for the American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ASCII was created in the early 1960s but did not become a United States government standard until 1968. In the 1960s, there were many data communication codes that were competing for the US Standard. In 1962, IBM created and promoted a coding standard known as Extended Binary-Coded-Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC). This was an 8-bit code which allowed up to 256 characters. However it lost out to ASCII as a "PC standard". EBCDIC is still used on many mainframe systems even today.

ASCII was defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in 1968 as "ANSI Standard x3.4". It has also been described as ISO 636. It is a 7-bit code that has a maximum of 128 characters/controls. ANSI is the Institute that defines American National standards. ASCII code is one of these standards. So, technically speaking, ASCII is an ANSI code. Got that?

There is another ANSI standard, ANSI Standard x3.16, which is an 8-bit code. This expansion was defined in 1979 in an effort to standardize graphic character representations and cursor control. It is based upon a 256 character set. It includes the 128 characters/controls of ASCII and an extra 128 characters/controls. It is sometimes called "extended ASCII" or "high ASCII", but it is really neither. It is a different ANSI Standard -- but not the "American Standard Code".

Have I totally confused you?

For more reading on ASCII and other computer codes, look to the following:

* http://czyborra.com/charsets/iso646.html
* http://telecom.tbi.net/history1.html

To view the ASCII Code Charts.
( 7-Bit ASCII codes with Even parity, 7-Bit ASCII codes with Odd parity, 7-Bit ASCII codes with Space parity, 7-Bit ASCII codes with Mark parity, ASCII Control code details): ( http://telecom.tbi.net/ascii1.html )

To view the "Extended Character" set.
( http://telecom.tbi.net/asc-ibm.html )

## EARLY ASCII ART

Perhaps the real start of ASCII art is with the beginning of the Internet. The Internet began in the 1960's as a means to communicate if nuclear war broke out. Military authorities created a network called ARPANET which connected 37 computers and several defense departments. No war came (thankfully) and the computer system expanded to include universities and other educational institutions. For many years the Internet belonged to the military and to the schools.

In the early 1990's, the World Wide Web was developed in the Switzerland. It was there that Hyper-Text Mark-Up Language (HTML) was first used. HTML is what allows documents to have 'hyperlinks'-- those links which cause a surfer to jump from web page to web page.

Many people use the Internet for e-mail. Initially, the Internet was pure text - no graphics and certainly no animations. E-mail was the same. ASCII art was used to create diagrams and charts. It was also used for "fun" and to enhance and liven up the plain text messages.

Besides digrams and charts, probably the earliest ASCII art from the Internet are the "Spy at the Wall" collection and the "Silly Cows" collection. David Bader, an ASCII art enthusiast and editor of the 'Cows", recently sent me the COMPLETE, UNCUT, ORIGINAL, and OFFICIAL Silly Cow collection! These cows can be seen all over the Internet and are truly considered to be "classic" ASCII art..

## BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEMS & UNDERGROUND ART

ASCII art has also been used in the BBS (computer bulletin board systems) scene and in the underground art groups.

BBSs were developed in 1978 and became quite popular in the early 1980s.. MUDs (multi-user dungeons) and MUGs (multi-user games) also became quite popular in the early years of the Internet. These are all text based applications. So, if someone wanted to include a picture or diagram, it had to be created from text. Even today, BBSs, MUDs, and MUGs exist -- many are still text based.

For more info on BBS and Multi-User Dungeons/Games:

Basic uses of Computer Bulletin Boards (includes History)
http://www.secretstuff.com/Contents/ComputerInfo/BBS_Uses.htm

Local Bulletin Board Systems
http://www.naples.net/remote/zrbbs.htm

Educational MUDS/MOOS
http://tecfa.unige.ch/edu-comp/WWW-VL/eduVR-page.html

There is another group of people who have used/created ASCII art from the early days. These are the "underground art groups" who create and package zipped files of art which can be downloaded from the. Some of these groups have been around for many years and create ANSI, ASCII, "Extended ASCII" text pictures, and VGA animations.

Here are some relevant sites:

* http://www.remorse.org (REMORSE)
* http://artpacks.acid.org/ (ACiD)

Other art groups involved in the underground art scene include iCE and CHAOS.

## RELATIVES OF ASCII ART

### ANSI ART

ANSI art is a cousin to ASCII art. It is often used on BBS (bulletin board systems). It also includes color and animation codes. ANSI art is still created today.

ANSI / ASCII Information
http://hem1.passagen.se/haakshem/asciians.html

ANSi Maker extreme
http://www.pagesz.net/~mhare/ansi.html
includes ANSI related links/software (including "TheDraw")

### AOL MACRO ART

America Online (AOL) is one of the few Internet/e-mail programs that did not allow for a fixed-width font. Up until the release of version 4.0, all AOL users had one font. -- yes, ONE font. That one font was Arial-10. Arial is a proportional font. The ASCII art of the Internet looked totally skewed to AOL users. In response, AOL users modified the spacing (by hand) so that the ASCII art would look good in their Arial proportional font. There are many AOL text artists who specialize in creating the Arial font pictures. Because their audience is solely other AOL users, "extended" characters are often used and seen without problems. These AOL Arial-font text pictures have been called "macros". Some misinformed people call them "ASCII Art" - they are not. Obviously, the AOL macros and ASCII art are 'cousins'. They are not the same. Many of the AOL macros are quite good. Unfortunately, they are not often seen or used by people outside of AOL (due to the font/spacing/character issues).

An example of a proportional -font AOL text art "Macros" by Jadie.

=> ./ascii_history_jgs/jadie.png -A gentle Kiss sent from up above- just to tell you that you are loved.

Please keep in mind that the above Arial example looks good only in the Arial-10 proportional font. It will look skewed in other proportional fonts and in the fixed-width fonts as well. It might even look a bit skewed when viewed in "your" Arial font. Arial has been known to vary from system to system. If you're interested in viewing more of the AOL proportional text art, visit the following sites:

The MACROHOUSE
http://come.to/themacrohouse

### mIRC POP-UPS

Another place that the ASCII art is prevalent is on mIRC (Internet Relay Chat). There are a number of chat channels that scroll colorized "ASCII" pop-ups or pictures. Often the pop-ups include the "extended" characters. This is rarely a problem since users are tied into the same mIRC software.

mIRC home page
http://www.mirc.co.uk/

There are many, perhaps thousands, of mIRC channels. Popular ones to "play" the colorized pop-ups include #mirc_rainbow and #mirc_colors. There are several IRC networks, the largest being Undernet. Other networks include Efnet, Dalnet..

And some related links:

MIRC Rainbow Home page
http://www.mirc-rainbow.com/rainbow.html

MIRC Colors Home page
http://www.mirc-colors.com/

Aisa's mIRC creations
http://www.ctv.es/USER/guerrero/

Undernet Home page
http://www.undernet.org/ -- the largest Internet Relay Chat networks

### ASCII ART TODAY AND TOMORROW

The Internet continues to grow. As more personal and home computers are purchased, more people are joining in. The 1999 Internet statistics have been released. There are about 800 million pages on the World Wide Web. Compare this to the 320 million pages estimate of 1997.

Electronic mail (e-mail) is widespread. Almost everyone has an e-mail address. People have discovered that e-mail is an efficient method of communication with friends and relatives. There are a variety of e-mail software and programs available. Some e-mail programs allow for graphic images -- but not all. Even people who are capable of receiving images are hesitant to download unknown files and images. ASCII art is text. It does not have to be downloaded to be viewed. For this reason, many people opt to send ASCII art.

Microsoft declared ASCII art "dead" in June of 1998. Why? I'm not sure. But I would guess that Microsoft is encouraging people to use GIF and JPG graphics -- of course, with their software. I also think that it is due to the fact that some software, namely Microsofts, are now using a default proportional font setting. ASCII art will appear skewed when viewed in a proportional font. All computer systems have capabilities for fixed-width font, so ASCII art isn't completely dead. People only need to switch their font to a fixed-width one such as Courier, FixedSys, Monaco, or Lucinda Console.

ASCII art is not dead. At least not yet. People continue to be intrigued and amazed by what can be created using basic keyboard characters. ASCII art is still used in e-mail, in e-zines, on BBSs, in MUDs/MUGs, and on mIRC. ASCII art has been used in web page development. The non-graphical graphics have served a purpose. ASCII art has also found its way off the Internet -- albeit slowly. It has been used to illustrate books (look for Jon Barnbrook's British Art History publication -1999). It has been used to illustrate in a magazine (see 1999 June issue of UK's EXE Magazine). A reproduction of an ASCII rendering was recently shown in 1999's contemporary art fair in Malaga, Spain. (www.mac21.com) Heck, you can even get a chocolate bar with an ASCII'fied wrapper! (www.gardenofinspirations.com) -- don't be surprised to see that I maake ASCII art T-shirts available in the future!

```
__.-.__.-.__
.'\ '-.__.-' /'.
/ | ,_ | \
/ | _/| \_ | \
'-._/ \.-""-./ \_.-'
| ( ^ \^ ) |
| \ == / |
| /'--'\ |
jgs | |
'._ _.'
`""""`
```

And it seems that someone has already gotten into the money-making aspect of ASCII art. For only $50 or £31.41, you can have an image turned into ASCII -- well actually, into the numbers that make up the value of Pi. The Pi image is constructed from the digits 0 to 9 (and one decimal point). Each digit has a different degree of darkness (grey scale). The final image is a black and white bitmap with the following size: 150 x 75 pixels. I wonder if people have actually paid money for this... it seems like a simple conversion program. Anyhow, take a look:

Image in Pi
http://www.hotbox.co.uk/p112.html
(link no longer active - 8/00)

Did I tell you? ASCII art has also found its way into advertising. Look at these recent advertisements using ASCII art... (the Honda image doesn't cycle, click on it and reload your page to view the animation)

=> ./ascii_history_jgs/fatbrain.gif Fatbrain.com ad -- {*}
=> ./ascii_history_jgs/asciimultibannerad.gif multibanner ad with ASCII art emoticons
=> ./ascii_history_jgs/hondaascii.gif Honda Ad that uses ASCII art... click and reload to view.

I will continue to look for information about text art and other mediums leading up to ASCII art, as we now know it... In the meanwhile, I'd like to hear from you...

I have collected responses from various e-mail and USENET posts regarding the history of ASCII art. I have found it all to be interesting. If anyone has more to add or comments to make, please add to the below "guest book"!

Copyright 1999-2001 Joan G. Stark, All Rights Reserved:
THIS PAGE MAY NOT BE USED OR PUBLISHED IN ANY FORM (WRITTEN, CD-ROM, ETC.) WITHOUT EXPRESS WRITTEN (HARDCOPY) PERMISSION FROM JOAN G. STARK. -- images remain copyright to the individuals who created them.--

Thanks to...
* Panati, Charles; Browser's Book of Beginnings, 1984, Houghton Mifflin Company
* John Foust -- X-jfoust@threedee.com
* George Hutchison -- W7KSJ@RTTY.com
* Marc Leavey, MD - WA3AJR -- X-ajr@ari.net
* Fred Lehmann -- X-lehmann@ideasign.com
* http://geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Set/5115/teletype.html
* John Sheetz - K2AGI -- X-ftmk71a@prodigy.com
* James Willing -- X-jimw@agora.rdrop.com

File: academy/history/underground_text_art.gmi
http://www.roysac.com/roy-sac_styles_of_underground_text_art.html

(note: this document was converted from html to text/gemini by Michael Lazar on 2021/07/18)

# The three ASCII Art Styles of the Underground Art Scene

Written by Carsten Cumbrowski aka Roy/SAC

## Table of Contents

* Introduction
* + 7 Bit ASCII
* + 8 Bit ASCII
* Style 1 - "Oldskool" or "Amiga" Style ASCII Art
* Style 2 - "Newskool" or "Classic" Style ASCII Art
* Style 3 - "Block" or "High ASCII" Style ASCII Art
* + "Block" ASCII Art Display in Windows
* PC "ANSI" Art
* Further Reading and Related Resources
* Videos, Tutorials and ASCII Art by Various Artists

## Introduction

This Article is about the ASCII Art Styles used by the Artists in the Underground Art Scene on the PC and Amiga between 1990 and today. The prime of ASCII and ANSI Text art was during the time when BBS'es (Bulletin Board Systems) were the primary medium for computer enthusiasts and "sceners" to exchange files and communicate. The more important the internet became, the more did BBS'es loose importance. BBS'es and also ASCII and ANSI Text art continues to exist until today, but are considered a novelty by most people and are hard to find.

There are 3 distinct Styles, two 7-bit and one 8-bit (high or extended ascii set):

The "Oldskool" or "Amiga" style (7-bit), the "Newskool" or "Classic" style (7-Bit) and last but not least the "Block" or "High-Ascii" style (8-bit). Also important to mention is PC ANSI, the colored "cousin" of ASCII; ANSI is not a style, but a format.

### 7 bit ASCII

"Original" is actually another good term for 7 bit ASCII's. Another term would be: "true" ASCII's, because ASCII, standing for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange" is always 7 bit, using only ASCII code 32 (space) to 126 (tilde ~) ).

Here is the US Charsset, starting with ASCII character 32 (space/blank) and ending with the ASCII character126 (tilde: ~).

The space character is represented by the white block at the beginning.

```
█ ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ?
@ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ \ ] ^ _
` a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z { | } ~
```

### 8 bit ASCII

The ASCII's using the special graphical characters on a PC (8 bit) are actually not really "ASCII's" in the true meaning of the word, because they are specific to the IBM PC and MS DOS (Code Pages 437 for North America and Code Pages 850 for Europe for example), but nobody really cared for that fine distinction. Those "other ASCII's" are referred to as "Block-ASCII's" so I will leave it at that. You can check out my ASCII art primer, if you want to learn about it in greater detail.

As already mentioned, those ASCIIs are unique to the MS DOS IBM PC and can not be found on other systems, including Linux or Unix systems who also run on a PC. Here are a number of graphical characters used by PC ASCII artists. It is not a complete list, but includes the most popular and most frequent used.

```
░ ▒ ▓ █ ▀ ▄ ▌ ▐ ■ ▪ ┌ ┐ └ ┘ ─ │ ├ ┥ ┴ ┯ ╞ ╟ ╚ ╔ ╩ ╦ ╠ ═ ╬
```

## Style 1 - "Oldskool" or "Amiga" Style ASCII Art

=> ./underground_text_art/Paso-IceCream-AmigaVsPCtrans.png Ice Cream Ascii by Paso

The first style of ASCII is using primarily slashes and lines (/\-|_) and came originally from the Commodore Amiga. It is referred to as "oldskool". You will be surprised to hear that there was a very unique reason why this style was so dominant on the Amiga Computers.

It is actually very simple.

The standard text font on the Amiga did not have the same line spacing and font style as on the PC. There was hardly a gap between the lines and the characters "lined up" much better. If you enter an "underscore" in one line and a slash beneath it, than it looked like if the 2 characters were glued together. "Line" ASCII's on the Amiga did more look like sketches than text Art. That explains the popularity.

The "Amiga Style" did actually derive from Text Art created on the Commodore 64 to decorate the File Listings on "Release" Floppy discs.

You could argue that the style should be called "C-64 Style" or at least "Commodore Style". You are right, but it did not happen this way, because the style was coined "Amiga" Style when it made its debute on the PC which was dominated by "Block" ASCII at that time (see style 3.).

Look at the sample Ascii (Screenshot) for the Ice Cream BBS by Paso (I inverted the colors for Web Design purposes.
Text on the Amiga was a dark font on light background).

Here are some of "Oldskool" ASCII's. These are no Images, but real text. You can mark and then copy'n paste them into an editor, if you don't believe me.

```
.
______ __:_ . /\_________ _ _:__ _ . __________ .
\__ \ | <_ _______\ | \ | : . /________ \ -============- : -[01/01]-
_ ______| _> \ |______ _/| ___\ \__ __ _/|____|_|_ ____|\___ ___:_____ _ | _\ )__/|______ ____|\ __
|. | _ \ | | | |/ _ \__ \ | |\ _____// _ \ \/ | .| _/--- | /___/ _____ / __ \ \/ \ --\_
. | __|_ |_> >| | |__| \__/__> | : _|__ \| |__ \__/ \ / | | . \--- | . \ < |/ /____\ | .\_/ --/
:_|_/_________/___ |\_____\_____\___/____\_____>____>____\_|\_/| |___|_: - - | |\______|___________/ | --- -
_|. _ \| ___ _ _ ____ ___| |____ ____ _ _ __ \ | _ .|_ - | / .:.nineteeneleven.:.\ | roy
.|_| BLUE SYSTEM _> : <_____________> \ \_ |____\ <_____________> \| <___|. -== |/ ===================== \| ====-
. \ \ | roy/sac |
\ |
\ |
\|
```

## Style 2 - "Newskool" or "Classic" Style ASCII Art

The second style which is using characters like "$#Xxo." quite a lot is actually very "classic" ASCII. As a matter of fact, it is as classic as "classic music". The Scene referred to the style wrongly as "Newskool", because the sceners, who were just "teenagers" for the most part, did not know better. "Classic" ASCII art (using the term "Text art" for classic ASCII would be more appropriate) was not known to most "sceners". They were simply too young to know.

"Oldskool" and "Block" dominated the Scene when BBS's became popular. They evolved at the beginning separately, "Block" on the PC and "Oldskool" on the Commodore Amiga. The "amiga" style made it's way to the PC years after its creation.

The "classic style" made its comeback much later and was completely new to most sceners, thus coined "Newskoool".

Well why should it be different than in the Music or Movie industry. Trends go in cycles. Something gets old, forgotten and the much later revived and re-introduced as the "New" Trend.

On the classic MS DOS was the background dark (black or blue) and the font white or light gray for good contrast. You do probably understand now the choice of colors for this Site. It changed to Light background color with dark font with the introduction of Microsoft Windows (3.x), unless you had a Commodore Amiga of course.

Here is a Newskool ASCII to give you an Idea how newskool ASCII's look like. This is also not an image, but real text like the Oldskool ASCII's above.

```
.
.o$$$$$o. o. .o$$
.'.$$$ `$$$$ $$ W e l c o m e t o . . . $$$$
.: $$$$ $$P'.$$ $$$$
`: $$$$ . $$$$ . .o$$$$$o. o$$$o. .o$$$$o. .o$$$$$$$o. .
` $$$$ $$o.`$$ $$o.`$' $$$$ `$o. $$$$' $$$$ $$' $$$$ .
.o$$`$$$ .$$$$ $$ $$$$ $ .$$$$ . `$$o.`$$ """' $$$. $$P' :: .
$$$$ `4$$$$$P'`$$$$$$P'`$$$$$P' 4$$$$P' 4$$$$$o. `4$$$$$$$o. .::`
$$$$ oooo ..::.......::......::......:. $o. ...::........ ..:::.
$$$$ $$P' `:::::::::::::. .o$$o. .::::' $$o. :::::::::' .o$ ::::.
$$$$ ` .:'" `::'" "" .:' " $$$$ `::::' " .o$$ `' `"
`4$$$$$o. .o$$$$$$o..o$$$$$$$ $$o..o$$$$o.`$$$$o. '.o$ $$$$.oOOOOOOOOo.
.`$$$$ $$$' $$$$ $$' $$P'o$ .o$$' $$$$ $$ o$$$ $$$$ . $$ $$ .
.o$ $$$$ $$$ $$$$ $$ $$$ $$$$.o$$P'.$$ $o.`$$$ $$$$ : $$ $$
$$$$ $$$$ $$$. $$$$ $$. $$o.`$ `$$$. $o. o$$. $$o.`$$. $$$$ ' $$ $$
`4$$$$$$P' 4$$$$$$P'`$$$$$$$$ $o.`4$$$$$$o.`$$$$$$$ 4$$$$$$$$o.`$ $$
<=============================================- o $$$$ o$ $$
<====- SAC - Superior Art Creations INet WHQ -=- .o$ $$$$.oOOOOOOOOo.
<====- LKCC - Last KC Computerclub INet WHQ - .o$$ $$$$ -=========>
<===========================================- $$$$ $$$$ -= roy =>
`4$$$$$$P'
```

### ASCII Art Display in Windows

It is usually not very hard to display 7 bit ASCII's on any Platform, Windows, Mac, Linux etc..
All support non-proportional or fixed-width/fixed-pitch or monospace typeface fonts (uses fixed glyph widths) such as Courier, FixedSys, Monaco, , Lucinda Console or Terminal and the ANSI Standard X3.4 from 1968.

This is unfortunately not the case with MS DOS 8 bit "Block" or extended ASCII's where the extended MS DOS Character Set is used.

## Style 3 - "Block" or "High ASCII" Style ASCII Art

So called "block ASCII" or "high ASCII" uses the extended characters of the 8-bit code page 437, which is a proprietary standard that was introduced by IBM in 1979 (ANSI Standard x3.16) for the IBM PC and MS DOS operating system in an effort to standardize graphic character representations and cursor control.

"Block ASCIIs" were widely used on the PC during the 1990s until the Internet replaced BBSes as the main communication platform for computer enthusiasts around the world. "Block ASCIIs" were dominating the PC Text Art Scene.

The 8-bit Character Set was a "PC Standard" and supported from the first, until the last MS DOS Version but is today rarely supported by any software anymore, in a world dominated by MS Windows. Microsoft elimited the support of ANSI Standard x3.16 almost entirely in MS Windows for unknown reasons.

It was never supported by any other Computer Hardware or Operating System. Apple (Macintosh), Commodore (AMIGA), SCO (Unix) nor Linux ever suppported "Block ASCII" or ANSI Standard x3.16. It became a "pseudo standard" that was destined to die.

Since almost all BBS Systems running on a IBM or compatible PC between the end of the 80'th until the end of the 90'th were written for MS DOS, ANSI Standard x3.16 or Block ASCII was used by most Sysops for their BBS designs.

Also most PC Warez groups used Block ASCII for their .NFO File designs. They continue to do so until this day. The heyday of "Block ASCII" might be a thing of the past, but it is not dead nor forgotten yet.

### "Block" ASCII display in Windows

There are 3 general options available to view Block ASCII's properly in Windows.

Option 1
You have to open a DOS Window and use the classic "type" command or a classic MS DOS Text Viewer/Editor to display the ASCII properly.

Option 2
You can also use Windows Notepad as alternative. You must set the Font used by Notepad to "Terminal". The result is not the same as in a MS DOS Window.

It is more looking like a inverted version of it. You can design ASCII's that look great in a DOS Window and ugly in Notepad and vice versa or one that looks good in both. You can see what I mean in the following example (screenshot image).

=> ./underground_text_art/ASCII_notepad_acidview_compare.png notepad/acidview compare

Option 3
Use a Windows Tool that emulates Block ASCII. The best Tool I know of is ACiD View for Windows.

## PC "ANSI" Art

The "colored" cousin of ASCII, ANSI is pretty much not supported by Windows anymore. You can use the 220KB Windows Tool ACiDView to view them (download here) or open a DOS Window with ANSI.SYS Driver loaded (which is not the case by default) and use the "type" command again or you simply open it with a DOS ANSI Editor like TheDraw (download here).

TheDraw will be quite a challenge for somebody who grew up with Windows and Mouse and is not familiar with the use and handling of old fashioned MS DOS Applications. TheDraw is still useful today, not just to create ANSI's and ASCII's, but also to easily convert files from ANSI to ASCII format (I don't know any Windows Tool that does that).

ANSI Colors were very limited but better than "Black and White" ASCII's. 16 static colors that could not be changed were available as Foreground Color.

The first 8 could also be used as Background Color. Although the 16 Foreground Colors were also available as "Blinking" color (making it a total of 32 Foreground Colors), did artists avoid those blinking colors after a short time of popularity.

It's funny, but exactly the same happened on the Internet. Blinking HTML Code was hip until people got tired and annoyed by it until it pretty much disappeared completely.

=> ./underground_text_art/Colors_Of_ANSI.gif The Colors of ANSI

Here is an ANSI which I created for a friend of mine and fellow Sysop in 1994. The Name of the BBS was Skylight BBS. It is one of my first ANSI's which was taken very serious and defined my own style "Roy-Style". I wrote a bit more about this particular ANSI in my Blog. About Skylight BBS Ansi Logo (1994) and Deviance NFO File Ascii Logo (2002).

=> ./underground_text_art/roy_sky_ansi2.png Skylight BBS ANSI

## Further Reading and Related Resources

If you are interested in learning more about the history of classic ASCII Art, check the Text (ASCII) Art History Article written by Joan G. Stark in 2000, my ASCII Art Academy content and also the other quality sites that can be found at my Art/Demoscene Links Section.

Also, to learn more about ANSI and ASCII Text Art, BBS'es, Demoscene, Warez Scene, the beginning of the computer age etc., check out my Links Section and also my Merchandizing Page where you can find related DVDs, DVD-ROMs and Books about the topic.

## Videos, Tutorials and ASCII Art by Various Artists

* Online Videos releated to text art, BBS, demoscene, SAC and Warez
* ASCII Art Academy - Tutorials, History and more to ASCII Art
* ASCII/ANSI Art Galleries with artwork by me and various other ASCII/ANSI artists
* ASCII Nudes Collection - 30 Years of "Naked" ASCII Art - 30 pieces of ASCII art showing nude girls created by hand by various different artists. A "boss key" feature is available too, which is interesting by itself, showing additional examples of great ASCII art without nudity.
* "Morph" - ASCII Animation (ASCIIMation) using JavaScript created by Skylined. It "morphs" a number of ASCII pictures from one into another and finishes with a great "mandelbrot" fractal zoom.
* "Star Field" - Another nice ASCII Animation using JavaScript created by Skylined showing a horizontal semi 3d star field animation like the ones that were popular in old computer demos and intros.