ASCII Art
| Tropes and genres | |
|---|---|
| Related tropes/genres | Typewriter Art |
| Related articles on Fanlore. | |
ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computer characters to create visuals pieced together for use in email, ezines, BBSs, mIRC, MUDs, and text-only webpage development.
Fans used ASCII art on early communication, often as part of a message footer.
An example of fan's 1995 parody of an X-File's episode "told" in ASCII is x-files!.
When online access was pricey and time-consuming, ASCII art had to be judiciously shared. A fan remembers: "You were entirely welcome to write long posts -- people were far more willing to read long posts then, in fact -- but you pissed people off if you quoted too much of the material you were responding to, posted something off-topic, posted spam, posted "me too" (especially if quoting the entire original), had giant ASCII art at the end of your post, or otherwise took up space to no purpose." [1] Also see Fandom 1994-2000-ish/Part One.
Gallery
the Starship Enterprise
R2 and C-Threepio
ASCII art-fusion with a .sig
Further reading
- ASCII Art Converter "Printer pictures" go hi-res by Paul Tupaczewski (1987)