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ASCII Art made in 1948

blog.modernmechanix.com — An artical from Popular Mechanics published October 1948 about making ASCII art with a type writer.

Who dugg this? Made popular Mar 14, 2006

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  • ryan_merket, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19ASCII != Typewriter
  • Skrolnik, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15All ASCII Art is Text Art, but not all Text Art is ASCII Art.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Actually, ASCII wasn't until 1967.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII
  • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7One mistyped character and your whole ASCII masterpiece goes into the garbage. A sport for the genuinely psychotic. Must... complete... picture... of... ASCII farmhouse...
  • TexMachina, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Very nice. I used to do a lot of ASCII art back in the BBS days. It's nice to know it has a history that predates the CRT.
  • osrevad, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I also used to a lot ASCII back in the day, and about a year ago I got back into making logos for FAQs at GameFAQs. More than a 100 so far. You can check it out here if you want: http://osrevad.westopia.net/ascii.php
  • idealizm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4please teach mulitple people here how to spell "ARTICLE". thanks. this is a third-grade level word. jesus.
  • scanman20, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Old school.
  • dukem72, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I remember when my mom showed me her typewritting classroom project book with tons of those pictures, I guess the teachers back then will make them do this type of stuff.

    And of course she was trying to push me to learn how to use a typewritter and get good at it when I was about 10 or so. Of course I refused saying " I will never need to learn how to type so why bother?" For sure moms know better!
  • inactive, on 12/17/2008, -0/+3Yes. Yes, it is.
  • detrate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Not surprising knowing that text art originated from the telegraph. [source - BBS the documentary]
  • akatrito, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3yeah although its pretty neat its not much of an "artical"...

    plus the old popular mechanics "artical" had to end up in a blog post
  • ggko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Interesting thing to note about typewriter art is that although it's "old skool" and predates ASCII art by decades, the latter is more limited in what you can do. There's one significant thing you can do on a typewriter that you can't do on a computer (in terms of ASCII/text art.)

    Half-space.

    More than that really, but those two words summarize the idea. The cabin picture demonstrates this. You can pack things closer with half-spacing, partial linefeeds, and even overtype to combine shapes. With ASCII art you're limited to one character per cell on a fixed grid.
  • bedouin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4If you check out Jason Scott's BBS documentary he dedicates a whole segment to teletype art, and even shows some examples. That's more the origins of ASCII art -- at least closer than this.
  • pdrap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3TheDraw
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Just wait until someone finds the article about the vietnamese using headshot scripts during the vietnam war...
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7BZZZT! Thanks for playing, but there's no ASCII here. ASCII doesn't mean "text". It stands for a particular 7-bit code (later extended to 8 bits.)

    Before ASCII there were 5-bit codes, like BAUDOT. There was a TON of Baudot TeleType art. Find an old timer and ask him about it.
  • maram500, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I like this article. And unlike almost every other article I comment on, I find no fault here. Actually, I rather like this. But I was under the impression that ASCII art was made on a computer. But maybe I'm completely f***ing wrong. Wouldn't be the first time.
  • ggko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Things weren't *that* bad, one mistyped character and you just pull out the correction tape.
  • gerkin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Oh man here we go ... that author probably has a patent and is going to sue us all now LOL

    digg++ ... lots of work, I'll stick to aalib personally heh
  • prockcore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2On That's Incredible, I remember seeing an old dude who basically made photographs using nothing but periods. The result looked like a half-tone print.

    Btw, Christian, nice to see you read digg.. --mrkite
  • jwalk81980, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3We did these in my high school typing class. My school was too cheap-ass to buy computers so we had to use real typewriters.
  • ZapWizard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Heck it was a standard assignment in typing class.
  • inactive, on 12/19/2008, -0/+2Edit:

    All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

    (Johnny is the line he speaks when axing down the door.)
  • mtbz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yes, I think we all know who needs a typing class....or a spelling class.
  • Habemus, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy.
    All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy.
    All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy.
  • Gotar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Heh the ORLY owl was started all the way back in 1948 huh? Interesting.
  • haooken, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3reminds me of one of the more popular ASCII 'works of art' from middle school. But that's inapropriate. ^_^
  • putnam, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I think this is one reason why people will never respect Digg's current format as much as they respect places like Slashdot. Articles with ***** proof-reading and terrible taglines will still make it to the front page because people enjoyed the link, so you wind up with terrible unprofessional things on a page seen by a tremendous amount of people. Maybe one day Digg will hire an editor to fix stupid mistakes and bad titles/descriptions BEFORE they're posted to the front page.

    I mean, I realize this isn't a tremendous thing on this particular post, but anyone that has been reading Digg on a daily basis has to admit that it's happening. Just wanted to get that out.
  • AparoidX, on 12/17/2008, -1/+2This old news is news
  • twinklyJesus, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5I can't wait to read the Digg about the punch card Christmas wreaths they used to make back in the 60's. Man WAS THAT EVER COOL!
  • idealizm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2FYI: ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange. This means, yes, the code must be computer generated and of multi-bit unique encoded characters (above and beyond the standard type-writer alphabet). This is not ASCII, but should perhaps be called the first "roots" of it...
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1check it out guys, more about ascii : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascii_art
  • Dhalamar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2That is so cool to see. I've tried ascii art before, but never really could get the hang of it outside of basic stuff. Seeing it go all the way back to 1948 is great to see.
  • idealizm, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4hilarious!! love the shining! =)
  • radman, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Great scan, I'll add this to my collection.

    RaD Man / ACiD
    http://www.acid.org
  • qwab, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3 ^__ ^
    (O O)
    (.V.)
    ( __ )
    M M

    who who... O'Rly?
  • junh, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2old, but cool
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  • YakkSoho, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Severely impressed.
    Relive 80s childhood.
    TrueType is dead f*king meat!
  • MannaPC, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2I'd digg this if is was true ASCII :P. Like all the other dudes say, it has to be on a PC :)
  • Experiment626, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3Nice artical.
  • chippunk, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1Thats pretty cool for a typewriter. I like ASCII on the Pc more. I will digg anyway
  • macgabriel87, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1ditto
  • ojk007, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2omfg lol
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4Not exactly ASCII art, but diggable nonetheless!

    http://www.gfx.com
  • digger_twit, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3edit
  • MattZed, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2wrong.. story?
  • ardellin, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2true, but I like regardless
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3Ugh, what a bunch of n00bs.
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