LOW RESOLUTION ART -- AUGUST 1998 low resolution art includes ansi, ascii, and lit. click on a thumbnail below to get to a list of thumbnails.
ansi | ascii | lit

ansi

deadsoul | eternal | dionyzos | kyo

ascii

Welcome to Mistigris' ASCII offerings for the month of August [1998].

There are some things which should be kept in mind when viewing the following files: these are not simple screen captures of displayed ASCII.

Every one of the following have been painstakingly hand-recoloured in HTML colours by Cthulu, who sincerely hopes in the future [2015: not yet, apparently] that some cunning software may be devised to allow ASCII artists the additional freedoms possible in HTML. It is important to note that there are a few idiosyncracies; some high-ascii characters do not display, while others mis-display. When viewing javist's ASCII, it will be apparent that HTML is not yet up to the task of emulating the 50-line or Amiga display best suited for viewing of oldschool ASCII.

ASCII (and other forms of low-resolution) art was originally utilized towards the end of displaying quickly on bulletin boards of limited bandwidth. Now that everyone idles on the world-wide-wait, its functionality should not continue to be ignored. What I hope to accomplish here is a demonstration that HTML does support ascii art, though not with 100% compliance it does boast some features lacking in standard ASCII - a greater palette, different font sizes, bold/italic/underlined attributes, and even the use of different fontsets - to say nothing of the hypertextual glories which made HTML the standard it is today.

I hope that by whiling away valuable summer hours converting the below ASCII art objects, I have lowered the barrier between the low-resolution ASCII art scene and the potential of the web, while raising the ante for someone to follow my lead and to produce an ASCII work which is not merely ported, but takes full advantage of the possibilities of HTML.

There no longer is any reason why a good concept (text pictures) needs to be bundled with archaic software and underground elitism. The web can free ASCII or it can destroy it. Seeing as I am a writer and a tracker, neither of those fates concerns me greatly but I always smile when a new use is found for an old tool, especially when such a use has advantages over its alternatives.

Make me not have wasted my time.

Cthulu, Mistigris founder.

bisquick | bisquick | bisquick
javist | weird

[back to the mothership]