What is ASCII Art?

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ASCII art is also known as "computer text art". It involves the smart placement of typed special characters or letters to make a visual shape that is spread over multiple lines of text. We can see these ASCII art pictures in online discussion forums, email signatures and online game chat. The simplest and the most common ASCII art are the emotion icons. For example: Smiley is represented as :). ASCII is the acronym for American Standard of Coded Information Interchange. It is the most common text character set used by internet computers. ASCII art can be created with any text editor. It is often used with free-form languages. ASCII art requires a fixed-width font such as "courier." Creating and displaying ASCII art is quite simple and easy. Just with a few minutes of practice and experimentation, anybody would become an ASCII artist within no time.

How was ASCII Art invented?

The oldest ASCII art was created by computer-art pioneer Kenneth Knowlton. He was working for Bell labs in 1966. The book named “Studies in Perception I" by Ken Knowlton and Leon Harmon shows some examples of their early ASCII art. The widespread usage of ASCII art can be traced to the late 1970s and early 1980s. The limitations of computers in creating images at that time period initiated the use of text characters to represent images. ASCII comics were also released. ASCII comic was a form of web comic. It used ASCII text to create images. The regular images in a comic were replaced by ASCII art. Text or dialog was usually placed underneath. In the 1990s, graphical browsing and variable-width fonts became increasingly popular, leading to the decline in ASCII art. One-line or single line ASCII art that does not require the mental rotation of the images is extremely popular in Japan. It is known as "kaomoji" meaning "face characters." Traditionally, these figures are referred as "ASCII Face".

What are the different types of ASCII Art?

Different techniques can be used in ASCII art to obtain different artistic effects.

• Line art can be used for creating shapes like the square, triangle etc.

• Solid art can be used for creating filled shapes.

• Shading can be done using different symbol density.

• Combinations can be used as SIG (signature) at the end of an email.

What are the uses of ASCII Art?

ASCII art is used extensively wherever text can be more readily printed. In some cases, where the transmission of graphics is not possible, ASCII art is used. This may include typewriters, teleprinters, non-graphic computer terminals, printer separators, e-mail, and Usenet news messages. ASCII art is also used within the source code of computer programs like C, C++ or .net or java programs for representation of company or product logos, and flow control or other diagrams. In few cases, the entire source code is a piece of ASCII art. 2D platform multiplayer shooter game called "OverKill" was designed entirely in color ASCII art.

How to make ASCII Art?

Learning ASCII art is quite simple. We can do it ourselves by just juggling between lines and characters (letters and alphabets). First choose the image you need to draw. Then type the lines or the characters in the shape of the image. We can either fill or create border around image. ASCII art can be created in any text editor like Notepad in Windows, simpleText or BBEdit in MacOS, Pico in UNIX, BEd or AZ in AmigaOS, Edit in DOS, or Emacs editors.

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