The History of ASCII (Text) Art
This is a brief history of ASCII Art, originally created by Joan G Stark, a prolific creator of ASCII Art with contributions by Charles Panati, John Foust, George Hutchison, Marc Leavey, Fred Lehmann, John Sheetz, James Willing and updated by Abbey Hawk Sparrow, creator of this software.
Hand Drawn Text as Imagery
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.
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). They are one of the precursors of modern concrete poetry.
Typesetting as Imagery
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!
"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'."
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)
Earliest Typewriter Art
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.
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.
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Teletype output as Imagery
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.
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ASCII and ANSI Codes
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.
ASCII Art in the Future
The Internet is ubiquitous and textual, in nature. For this reason, ASCII art continues to be relevant and sees frequent use.
Microsoft declared ASCII art "dead" in June of 1998 because they wanted to break fixed width alignment in their applications, but it proved premature. All computer systems have capabilities for fixed-width font and for terminal usage it's the standard, so ASCII art isn't going anywhere.
ASCII art is far from dead. 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 and in terminal consoles everywhere. It has a rich history and an active userbase which has only expanded with the advent of UTF.
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jgs | |
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