Time Travel to the Era of the BBS and ANSI Animation

I am sorry for all the dead videos at my blog at the moment, but as I mentioned in my last post, my primary YouTube account is currently in status "suspended". I tried to contact YouTube several times via email and fax (yeah, that machine that sends paper over the phone wires). I also tried to call them, but if you do not know the extension of the person you want to reach then you got stuck in an automated computer menu jungle or the system hangs up on you.

I complained about this horrible support at one of the business blogs I write for and home that I will hear something from YouTube within this year or so. I have not given up my account yet. I probably lost the hundreds of subscribers, but I hope for YouTube that my 160+ videos are still okay.

I still have my other YouTube account with the user name "sacreleases" where I upload demos, intros and cracktro videos recordings and ANSI animations or ASCIImations. That account has over 200 videos available for watching. In the case that you did not notice, but I made the first 199 videos accessible from the RoySAC.com homepage via a YouTube JavaScript widget.

One Video that I uploaded last night was the ANSI animation by Jed and Tracer of ACiD Productions for the BBS "The Bog" from around 1992. I added audio to it, just for the fun of it and to support the visual images. I did a voiceover for an ANSI animation earlier, if you remember, for the BBS "Korova Milkbar" and the animation Blade Runner of ACiD did for it.

Here is the video of the new ANSI animation with voiceover for "The Bog".



Backup Link to Video at YouTube.com.

I also expanded the page about my old BBS, Closed Society, because I stumbled over an old partial backup of the PCBoard installation and tried to make it run, just to see, if that is possible. To my amazement was this actually possible and I was able to get one node up. I captured a browsing session and made a video out of it. The file listings were broke unfortunately so I could not show how they looked like with the file_id.diz content nicely added to the file descriptions and the "FS" PPE by PWA in action to highlight, view and mark files for download.

I added some more gimmick to the video capture and some sound. For whatever stupid reason did most video sharing websites messed up the sound. I tried 50,000 things to get it right, but none worked. The funny thing is that I have videos with the same sounds that work perfectly fine. It's a miracle to me and beyond comprehension.

Luckily for you and me did at least one video sharing website get it right and that's the one that I used for the embedded video version that now follows.


Time Travel to the Era of the BBS V3

I hope you enjoyed the short trip back in time. Stop sobbing! It is over, live with it! We all have to, including myself. However, it was still nice to forget about the hard facts and truth for a couple minutes.

Btw. If you like the video and would like to have/see it in nice and clear 640x480 pixels resolution, I have good news for you. I put the video in AVI file format up on Mediafire.com for free download. It is about 67 MB in size. Here is the link.

Enjoy and Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

ANSI Art Tutorials for my ASCII Art Academy

Good news!

I extended the ASCII Art Academy with several new tutorials.

Only one of the new tutorials is for 7-bit ASCII, but hey, there I had already seven to begin with. The additional tutorial was created by "Cain" and it demonstrates how to draw a cool 7-bit newskool ASCII Logo.

The most important additions are the SIX ANSI art tutorials, because I didn't had any ANSI tutorials before and was constantly looking for some.

I found the tutorials in an unexpected place. They were originally published at the Acheron ANSI, ASCII and RIP art forums and portal at Acheron.org. Archeron was discontinued in 2004 and is now part of the Sixteencolors.net site, specificallly the Sixteencolors.net Wiki.

I found a backup of the whole site on the "Dark Domain DVD" by RaD Man/ACiD, which is actually an archive for ANSI/ASCII art packs and not a web archive per se. Well, thanks to Chris (RaD Man) and his collectors instinct, was I able to republish the ANSI art tutorials on the Internet again.

The Dark Domain DVD is available in my little "online shop" by the way and a must buy for all ANSI and ASCII art fans out there. Buy the DVD and stop collecting anything that was released before 2005, because the DVD has all of them in one small and handy package for an affordable price.

Now I need to find tutorials for 8-Bit block ASCII. I don't have anything for that style available at my academy yet.

I will continue looking for any tutorials, but play also with the idea of creating a tutorial myself, which covers some basics. I will have to see, if I find the time to do this or not. If you know about any 8-Bit ASCII tutorials, please let me know, I'd appreciate that.

Until then, check out the vast content that is already there, 7-Bit ASCII tutorials, now also ANSI tutorials, articles, background information, history and much more.
Visit the ASCII Art Academy now!

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

What is ANSI Animation or ANSImation?

People often confuse ASCII animation or ASCIImation with ANSI Animation or ANSImation and believe them to be the same. This is actually wrong.

ASCIImations are created by using programming (code) to move text characters around in a way that makes it apear like an animation or movement. Even text-mode demos that show text characters with ANSI color coding are not really ANSI animations, because they also use programming to make the characters move to get the desired movie or animation visual effects.

Back to ASCII Art Academy

True ANSI animations are not coded, don't use any programming language to create the effect of motion and only make use of some more specific and special escape sequences provided by the ANSI.sys driver of MS DOS. ANSI animations are not executables like text-mode demos, but plain and simple .ANS text files.

Smart Cursor Control
ANSI animation takes advantage of the build-in ESC sequences of the ANSI format to re-position the cursor on the screen to rewrite individual areas in a video-like sequence. ANSI.sys, the MS DOS driver that enabled the support for ANSI codes, also supported a number of other features that were helpful for the creation of ANSI animations.

Set cursor-position; move up/down/forward/backward for a set number of characters, save current cursor position, restore cursor position and erase line are the most important of those features. For a full description of the ANSI escape sequences supported by ANSI.sys, check out this text file.

Only few editors that supported ANSI animation are available. One of those editors is TheDraw, which is also my ANSI editor of choice for most ASCII and ANSI art pieces that I created. I use it since 1993 and still use it today once in a while. You can download the editor on my website and play around with its ANSI animation features, if you’d like to.

The "Speed Issue"
ANSI animations have one significant issue. The artist has no means to control the speed at which the animation is "played back". ANSI does not support fix time delays that are linked to the internal clock of the computer to wait for a set number of milliseconds, something most third generation programming languages support. The playback speed is entirely determined by how fast the system can read and display the ANSI escape sequences of the ANSI file. The speed if you load an ANSI from your hard disk by using the "type" command for example (with ANSI.sys driver loaded), is virtually instant. Even large ANSI files will be displayed within a fraction of a second.

In order to make the ANSI animation look like an animation is it necessary to throttle down the speed with which the ANSI codes and ASCII characters are loaded and then displayed on the screen.

The natural way to throttle down the loading speed of an ANSI at that time was the transfer speed of the modems of that era. The top speed of modems around the early 1990s was 9.6KBit to 14.4KBit. An 100KB ANSI animation would take a few seconds to download and just cause the necessary delays to bring the animation to life.

To show the effects of the longer loading time on an ANSI, caused by the slower download speed of a modem from that era, see this video. It shows a long ANSI downloaded with a simulated speed of a 14.4KB modem. It's not an animation and only a very long static ANSI, but it is perfect for the illustration of how ANSI animations were only made possible, because of the existance of the combination of available and needed ANSI.sys escape sequences for cursor movement and control plus the slow download speed of modems at that time to cause the necessary delays by which ANSI animations are being loaded and displayed.



The biggest takeaway from this simple fact is that creators of ANSI animations did not only have to consider which characters to re-write, overwrite and delete etc., but also for which download speed the animation will be optimized. If the animation was optimized for a download speed of 2,400 baud and downloaded with a 14.4KB modem, the animation would play much too fast. If the animation was optimized for 14.4KB and downloaded with a 2,400 Baud modem, the animation would appear like in slow motion.

ANSI Animation Artists Tracer/ACiD and Jed/ACiD
One artist who kind of specialized in this special area of ANSI art were the famous ACiD artists Tracer and Jed. They created a number of ANSI animations and were in my opinion the best ANSI animation artists who ever existed. They worked on some pieces together.

Tracer optimized most of his ANSI animations to be downloaded and watched by a user with a 14.4KB modem or at least 9.6KB for optimum playback speed.

Here is the video recording of one ANSI animation that was created for the BBS "The Bog" by Tracer/ACiD and Jed/ACiD in 1992.



Other ACiD artists who created ANSI animation were Tank, Fusion, Cerberus and Blade Runner. They created also some remarkable pieces of ANSI animation (they called it ANSI Movies back in the old days), but fell a bit short of the quality and ingenuity of the works by their group mates Tracer and Jed (IMHO).

Although ANSI was capable of some sounds, which caused the development of a small specialized scene, which created ANSI music, am I unaware of the existence of ANSI animations that also use ANSI music for sound effects and/or background music. I am also not aware of any editor that supported both of those features to help artists with the creation of such ANSI animations.

I dug up a number of old ANSI animation pieces (over a dozen of them) and currently work on converting them to video. Watch out for the ANSI Movies/ANSI Animation gallery here at RoySAC.com.

Update! Here are 21 ANSI Animations from various ACiD Production members. I did not embed the YouTube video for all of the 21 videos, because that would screw up some browsers. I added small thumbnail images with a direct link to the video at YouTube for each of the ANSI animations instead. Enjoy the show!

Tracer/ACiD ACiD Productions	Tracer/ACiD The Elders Craft World	Tracer/ACiD SDA
Tracer/ACiD Body Count	Jed and Tracer/ACiD The Bog	Tank/ACiD Agents of Fortune
Tank/ACiD Inn of the Last Home	Sonic/ACiD Why does iCE has so many members?	Sonic/ACiD Spyrits Crypt
Jed/ACiD Surburbia	Jed/ACiD So-Krates BBS	Jed/ACiD Midnite Oil 3
Jed/ACiD Beyond the Realm of Reality	Jed/ACiD Barter Town	Jed and Spectral Illusion/ACiD Nuclear Wastelandz
Jed and RaD Man/ACiD Spyrits Crypt	Fusion/ACiD Badlands	Cerberus/ACiD Evil Palace
Blade Runner/ACiD The Cartel	Blade Runner/ACiD Korova Milkbar	Jed/ACiD ANSI Toons 2

And here is another fun bonus. I provided one of the ANSI animations with a voiceover including foley FX and all that hehe. I hope you like it.



Backup link to video at YouTube.com.


Back to ASCII Art Academy

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Stats for Fun

I have an account at the social network and artist community deviantArt.com since March 3, 2006.

I looked at the statistics today and find it pretty interesting. Some numbers are not shown in the summary so I added them myself.

Stats Summary

• roy-sac has 9,985 pageviews total and his 306 deviations were viewed 23,717 times. He watches 60 people, while 86 people watch him.
• Overall, his deviations received 665 comments and were added to deviants' favourites 198 times, while he commented 1,383 times, making about 2.06 comments per day since he joined DA. This means that he gave 21 comments for every 10 that he received.
• His deviation with the most comments is deviantART ANSI Logo with 98 comments, and it is also his most favourited, with 73 favourites. His most viewed deviation is deviantART ANSI Logo with 5,266 views.
• 3 favourites were given for every 10 comments.
• Every 2.1 days he uploads a new deviation, and it's usually on a Sunday, with 66 (22%) of his deviations.
• His busiest month was July 2006 with 61 (20%) of his deviations.
• The majority of his deviations are uploaded to the Digital Art gallery (268), while his favourite category was Text Art > ASCII with 134 deviations.

• Comments per deviation: 2.17
• Favourites per deviation: 0.64
• Views per deviation: 77.5
• Comments per day: 0.99
• Favourites per day: 0.29
• Views per day: 35.35
• Pageviews per day: 14.88

Additional figures that were not provided in the summary by deviantArt.

• Deviation Comments: 671
• Deviant Comments: 373
• News Comments: 31
• Forum Posts: 16
• Journal Entries: 48
• Favorites: 490
• Items in Wish List: 31
• Scraps: 7
• Prints available in dA Shop: 13 which had 17 sales altogether. Most of the sales were done by myself hehe.
• I submit art to 21 categories, but the vast majority of them (306) were for the categories ASCII Text Art (134), ANSI Text Art (109) and Landscapes (15). The last one is for photographies.

The top four deviations by number of favorites.

1. deviantART ANSI Logo (73 favs, 98 comments, 5266 views)
2. deviantART Google Logo (24 favs, 64 comments, 2663 views)
3. deviantART ASCII Logo (6 favs, 10 comments, 1126 views)
4. TRSI Pixel Art VGA Logo (6 favs, 10 comments, 184 views)

My first ANSI for Melmac BBS is actually #4 by pageviews. It had 610 of them, which is three times more than the TRSI logo. However, the Melmac ANSI was never fav'ed though hehe.

It Was Time Again For A Clean-Up

As the title of this post already said, it was time again for a clean-up of my site RoySAC.com. Its content was growing significantely over the past months, which resulted in a very user unfriendly navigation and gave folks a hard time to find stuff on the site.



Homepage
The first thing you will notice is a much more cleaner, shorter and straight forward homepage of RoySAC.com. Old content from the homepage was moved to existing pages (SAC homepage, About Me page), to its own page (Closed Society BBS) or simply deleted.

ASCII Art Academy
The ASCII art primer and the three styles of the underground text art scene articles can not be found in the top navigation anymore. I created a whole new section call the ASCII Art Academy. The academy refers to those two articles and to a lot more stuff, including the existing ASCII art tutorials by Solid and DiamonDie plus five new ASCII art tutorials and the History of ASCII Art article by Joan G. Stark.

The new ASCII Art Academy can also be reached via the simple URL RoySAC.com/learn/.

Art Galleries
I had already four art galleries for my own stuff. Three more were added when my site took over as Superior Art Creations homepage. Then I added two more with ASCII and ANSI art from other artists and don't forget the special ASCII Nudes gallery and the ASCII morph pieces by Skylined.

Stuff was all over the place.

The galleries got a new "splash page" called... right, Art Galleries, which provides easy access to all the galleries and art pieces mentioned above.

Contact Page
In the case that you did not notice, I also have a contact form available now where you can send me a message without the need to dig for my email address and using your email client.

Site Navigation
The top navigation and additional text navigation in the footer of the site reflect the new structure of my site. I hope it makes things less confusing and make people actually find all the nice stuff, which I made available on my website.

Unchanged
The SAC section grew in size a little, the same is true for my About Me page, but the rest remained pretty much the same as it was before. Also the online shop, downloads page and links section did not require to be changed.

Feedback Wanted
Let me know what you think. I am open for any comments, suggestions, praise, complaints and other feedback about the new site structure and navigation. Contact me directly or leave a comment here at my blog. Thanks, I appreciate that.

Enjoy the site! Cheers!
Carsten aja Roy/SAC

New ASCII and ANSI Art Galleries

When I added the SAC section to my site and new galleries with ASCII, ANSI and pixel art that were not created by me, did I say to myself "why not add other great art to the site as well".

Neo Tokyo ANSI by Somms/ACiD

I was also inspired by Sixteencolors.net who did an amazing job of making ANSI art available to look at on the web.

Razor 1911 ANSI by Zebig/Razor 1911

I don't want to create a file archive where you can find a lot of art, but have to download it first and use special software to be able to look at it. Jason Scott over at Textfiles.com is doing a great job doing that.


The new galleries are only the beginning. More will come over time.

Okay check out the new ASCII Art Gallery and the new ANSI Art Gallery.

ASCII Skull - taken from the
Night Rising World ASCII by Olli/Black Maiden

Famous Che Guevara head shot.
Taken from the MIM NFO ASCII by m0/Chemical Reactions

New Gallery Feature
You will notice in detail page of the ASCII art pieces new buttons in the top left: "Snapshot Image", "Text Version" and "Original (DL)".

Razor 1911 NFO file logo by JED/ACiD

"Snapshot Image" is the default display mode. The ASCIIs (and ANSIs) are converted with a tool called PHP AnsiLove to a PNG image. This happens in real time based on the original ASCII or ANSI file. The result is very close to the looks of the text art in MS DOS.

"Text Version" is what it says, the real text version of the ASCII. I wrote a converter to convert ASCIIs to Unicode. The font used is "Lucida Console" for the display on the web.

I am not sure if looks right on all systems and browsers, which is the reason that I did not make it the default display option.

I want to write a converter for ANSI as well, which converts the ANSI.sys "escape codes" to HTML. It is not done yet, thus no buttons are available in the details of the ANSIs yet.

Avatar FTP Site Advert by Darrix

"Original (DL)" was there all the time. It is also available at the bottom of the page for ANSIs. It is the option to download the original .ASC or .ANS file to your local hard drive.

I hope you will like those new additions to the site. Feel free to leave any comments and suggestions here at my blog.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Welcome to the ASCII Art Videos

I added a new page to my site, which is dedicated to show videos that are about or related to text art and the subject that surrounds it, including the BBS scene, the demoscene and of course SAC, Superior Art Creations.

Visit the new ASCII Art Videos Section at RoySAC.com/videos/.

The section launched with 10 videos.

The first one is "The Art of Textmode" - Text Art History, a presentation at the Assembly 2004 Demo party in Helsinki, Finland by Christian Wirth aka RaD Man. I referred to that video earlier already in a blog post of mine from February and decided to put it somewhere on the site where it can be found more easily.

The second one is a short video by Creature of Hell/SAC - The Movie from 2001, showing off some of his pixel art skills.

The main part of the section is made up by the six videos, which represent the complete content of Jason Scott's 3 DVD long documentary titled "BBS - The Documentary". No, it's not an illegal copy of the DVD's. Jason put them up himself on Google Video, because he released the documentary under the creative commons licensing model to make its content easier accessible. Jason does of course appreciate support for his cause(s), which are surrounding the subject of BBS and actually were the triggers for him to create the documentary in the first place. You can support him via buying the real DVDs, pressed, not burned, with nice wrapping and paper box for example. You can get it via his website here or from Amazon.com, if you prefer them for any reasons.



Then I also put up two good examples of ASCIImation, which means animated ASCII or ASCII animation. The examples show two songs by more or less famous musicians who used ASCIImation for their music videos.

More videos will be added over time, especially videos of the old SACtros and cracktros the group did for others and which can not be started and watched on modern PCs without emulation of the old MS DOS operating system.

Btw. I extended the SAC section of RoySAC.com a little bit as well. I added more content and also found two music-disks that were released by SAC members when I was not part of the group anymore. I found them by accident and put them up on my site of course. :)

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Major Site Expansion and New SAC Section with Art Packs Page

I spent quite some time to update content at my RoySAC.com Website. I wrote a whole ASCII art primer article to give you an idea what I am talking about in general. It is for people who do know little or nothing about ASCII/ANSI art, the artscene and the warez scene it operated in.

The biggest addition is the new SAC section, which is dedicated solely to everything related to Superior Art Creations, the art group, which I founded in 1994.

You can find there SAC VGA logos created by SAC members for the group, as well as ANSI logos and ASCII logos, which were created for internal purposes of the group.

The largest addition overall was the new SAC art packs releases page. It shows all 34 SAC art packs, which were released betweeen December 1994 and December 2005, the packs File_ID.diz, download links to the pack files, links to the SAC.NFO files for detailed information about each pack and a brief description for every release.

The descriptions are more detailed than I had originally planned. Because of that, does the page act as SAC history page for now, until a better SAC history page is being created one day. There are some "holes" in it, but I hope to get the missing information and will then update the page accordingly.

I updated pretty much every page of the site, including the home page, the Roy/SAC art page, the shop, the downloads section, the links page and the gallery pages (ASCII Art, ANSI Art, Best Of and VGA Art). The Website navigation was overhauled and has now a much slicker look than before. Here is a partial screen shot of how the navigation of the site looks today.



I hope you will enjoy the "renovated" and massive expanded RoySAC.com site. Let me know what you think about it, negative feedback is as welcome as possitive.

Thank you and Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Coming Up: DefCon, 15 Las Vegas

I will be at this years DefCon conference in Las Vegas, between August 3rd and 5th, 2007. DefCon is the world's largest underground hacking convention! This will be the 15th installment of the conference.

There will be over 175! Speakers and tons of sessions over multiple tracks.

My friend Christian Wirth aka "RaD Man", founder of ACiD Productions will be a speaker at the panel "Self-Publishing and the Computer Underground", together with Myles Long Director of Depravity, cDc communications/CULT OF THE DEAD COW and Rob "Flack" O'Hara member cDc's Ninja Strike Force.

Have you ever considered publishing your own book? Your own DVD? Self-publishing has been a part of the computer underground since its inception, from the Neon Knights to the Syndicate of London's recent book "End of Dayz". This panel will discuss types of self-publishing (both on- and off-line) and their relevance to the computer underground. They will also discuss their personal experiences in self-publishing. Ample time for questions will be available. Learn about the process from people who have gone through it.

Jason Scott from Textfiles.com and "BBS - The Documentary", who is a DefCon veteran, will be speaking at DefCon again too. This years session is titled "THE EDGE OF FOREVER - MAKING COMPUTER HISTORY"

Too often, "Computer History" gets shoved into a forgotten bin of irrelevancy, devoid of use for lessons and understanding. Even more often, people often fail to realize they're making history themselves. Jason Scott will walk though the basics of computer history, what to save, how to ensure things last for future generations, or perhaps how to ensure it's never found again.

I hope that I will be able to meet Jason in person. I read his blog titled "ASCII" and he seems to be a nice but also crazy guy (just like me hehe).

I got a free press pass for the conference, allthough the fee for a pass is cheap compared to other conferences, which I ususally attend. It's only $100. The hotel and flight are more expensive.

The event happens at the Riviera Hotel and Casino. The rooms are booked out. I am staying at the nearby but cheap Circus Circus, Resort and Casino.

There will be a sale of a limited editon DefCon T-shirt. I am telling you this, because I created the design for it :). It was my first ANSI in over 10 months.



Do you like it?

See ya in Las Vegas! Cheers! Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Nude Girls in ASCII - Even More Naked Truth

I realized 2 days after my post about the 30 years of naked ASCII art that the gallery was not working with Firefox and Safari.

No wonder that it died at Digg before it even started. I would be glad, if you could revive it by digging it, if you happen to have a Digg account. Thanks. Much appreciated.

I fixed the Gallery and tested it with Firefox 2.0 and Safari for Windows. It works fine now. While I was at it, did I extend the gallery from 20 to 30 pieces of art.

I also did significantly improve the interface. I am now showing little thumbnails for the picture selection and also added a little "fading" effect if you hover over a picture, which works for IE and Firefox (not for Safari, sorry).

       d@$iWWb:
     '8$$$$#$$$k
     '8$$$$ `$$M&
     X$$$$K  `$$XX
     $$$$$UUo$@$$$.
    9$$$$$$$$$9$$$$>
   W$$$$$$$$P `#$$?B
  '$$$$$"#$h. d$$$X?$c
   $$$$R      /"$$$X$$
   ?$$$R~    :/ $$R"""\.
    $$$$:  .xHH9$E      !
   '$"9$$N    d$$F       !
   '  M$$$'Ne@$$$!'      '
   E  XR#$>'R P9?  k>     :
   E   '! *f  .f'  :      9k               -~`      `"-.
   `  :    `    >   >     ~$:          .~                `!.
   'L :     ~` ~    !     '$8       .~                        ~\.
    ?         ~   ! .      $$$.    :                             `~:
    `!        '   %X2      R$$W% .~                                  `\
     !:  MM>  FL     :     M5$$ ~   !                                   `.
     !$W.   xF  #buo@$     '^$F   :$$>       .--^`"-.  `.
     !M$$$$*         'k    '     d$*##..-~`           `: "4:x.       `"#5    \.
     '!$$$$$c   !. !xx!     .!  `$$@F`                  >~
     '\!?$$$$$X.     `M   9 !     ~
     '!!!> ~ `!!~!!.  f     ~ ~

A simple click on the current image also closes it and pushes the image selection up and into the center of the screen. So you don't have to scroll all the way to the end of the picture anymore. I also reduced the size of the standard website navigation to the minimum.

A lot of enhancements and extensions. A lot more reasons to check out my ASCII Nudes Collection.



This is a screen shot of the new image selection. Neat eh?
Enjoy!


Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Text Art Google Group

I created today a Google Group titled "ASCII and ANSI Text Art", but it is open to anything and anybody who and which is related to Text Art.

For that reason is the short name and URL to the group "textart" instead of "asciiart" or "ansiart".

ASCII and ANSI text art Visit this group

Subscribe to ASCII and ANSI text art Email: Visit this group

Those templates were provided by Google hehe.

I created already a little resources page and also started a discussion about something that has always been a controversy. I will not tell you what that is, go check out the group and find out for yourself.

A number of XML feeds are also available for anybody who can not live without.

	Atom 1.0 15 New messages 50 New messages 15 New topics 50 New topics		RSS 2.0 15 New messages 50 New messages 15 New topics 50 New topics

Lets see how it goes. Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Image to Text Converter and Fun with Matt Cutts

I came across a nice free tool that converts images to ASCII. It is called Photo2Text.com and produces very decent results. I have looked at a bunch of such converters since the early nineties and the results can vary a lot, depending on the quality of the algorithm that has to decide which text character is the best to get it as close to the original as it possibly can.

I was never a fan on image to text converters. Mostly because those converters were and are often used by guys who are cheats and try to "sell" converted images as their own creation, as in made from scratch and by hand. Real pieces of ASCII art are being created without the use of any special tools other than editors that allow to assign text characters to specific keys on the keyboard and let you easier move around to change individual characters ("insert" off and the ability to move with the cursor to the right without the need to create "spaces" manually first). A number of different tools are available for download at my site.

Anyhow, I take the converters as what they are, a nice tool to have fun with, nothing serious. Nothing is wrong with good old fashioned fun. The only person who is serious about it, is the coder who spent his time figuring out how to produce the best possible result.

To demonstrate the quality of the Photo2Text.com converter, did I use an image of the Google engineer Matt Cutts, who has a blog where he talks to webmasters about SEO and search engine spam (and his pet, a cat). I had my arguments with him a bunch of times, so it just right for me to use him as guinea pig and demonstration object hehe.

You can see the GIF image of him, which I used to the right. I optimized it a bit to increase the contrast for better result. I also made sure that there is not too much going on, like stuff in the background, which would overload the picture and harder to get an ASCII back where you can identify anything.

The tool lets you choose from eight different character sets to be used for the converted image.

Set 1:  @#MBHA&Gh93X25Sisr;:,.
Set 2:  @#MBHA&Gh93X25Sisr;:,.__
Set 3:  #WMBRXVYIti+=;:,.
Set 4:  #Xx+=-;,.
Set 5:  @%#*+=-:.
Set 6:  #¥®Ø$ø0o°+=-,.
Set 7:  01
Set 8:  █▓▒░

An interesting and rare feature is the "slider" to adjust the image's "brightness". It is more than just a gimick and you should play around with it, because it can improve results significantly if you increase or decrease it, depending on the original image.

Also nice, the option to save the final ASCII to your computer. Okay, lets have a look at the results for the Matt Cutts image.

First Version using Character Set: @#MBHA&Gh93X25Sisr;:,.

I used the default "brightness", which is a bit darker. For that reason is the face also filled with characters.

                                ..,ri52G@@HXX2i;::;:                                    
                            rAr;@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@#i,                               
                       ,iH@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@Mr                            
                    .r@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@s.                        
                 .i#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@;                      
               ,h@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@r                    
             .s@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@r                  
            .2@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@2                
            X@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@,              
          :#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@S             
        :#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@X            
       3@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@r           
      s@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@H           
      &@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@;          
      H@@@@@HG#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@A          
      A@@@@G2i9@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@.         
      ,@@@Gi552#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@;         
       s@Bri22SG@@@M#@@@#@@@@@@@#@##@@@@@@##MM##@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@s         
       s@5iXX2S5h#@@@@@@#@@@@@@@####@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@3         
       i@S39X55ss5G#@###@@GH@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@H         
       r@299X2Siiir;r;;;sii;,:iXA@@@@@@@@@@#952A@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@M         
       ;#299XX2225issrrr;::;;,   ;h2;rrs2Xisrr2A##@@@@M@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@2         
       ,Ah3XXXX52225isiSiiiiSisr:,,,,:::::rsiSih##M@@@#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@r         
       .3AXXXXX25522iiSiSissrsSs;::;;rsrrsii22i3@@#@@@#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@G          
        5G522XX2iSX5i55iis;;;;rr;;rsss55sSXSiS22H@@#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@s          
       :hX2SsiSisi52Sii5rr;;;r;;rrSi55555Siiii52&#@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@H,          
      .GMA3Siisiiii5Siisrr;;;rrrrrsi52552SSSSS522B@@M#@@@###@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@#,          
     ;@@@#XSS5iisriisr;ssrsrrsssrrri2252X5555SSSrX@@###@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@h           
 ;r;X@@@@@@M#BG5iirsirrs2iSSsisr;:rsiS55225SSiiSssS&@@@##@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@r           
.@@#; ,A@@@@@@@H9&32&h3XX2S5SSXh3irssi52XX5S25522SiSG@@@@@@#@@@@@@M2ssSXA@@M,           
  H;   ;#@@@A#@@@#95G@@@@@@@@#@@##AAAhh2SXX22iSSSX3X&@@@@@@@@@A2Sr:;sisS5h@5            
  s;.  ,hH@#hXA@@@#&9G9&B@@@@@@@@@@@#M##AX3hX3hHHM#M#@@@@@@@@9:.:sSSi52Ss2Bs            
   s:  iA3G&B#@@@3S5A#5ri2SA@@@@@M##@@#@@@@#HAGX222S5B@@@@#@@5;i2; :r2G5s2@A            
   ;2,,3AGG&AG9@ASs;sH@@&2X&###A322H@h3AAXr;;;;rsiSSi2M##@#@M33BArsXSSG3rh@B            
    ,ihAHAh&h223XisisS23922hBBAh32i23r;s;;;;;::rS52X22H@@@@@AhHMGr;XXiGXs@@             
     ;#AXX2X29GXisSirri22ssS2XXX2S53irrsiisrr;rS2523X2XBHA##hiX3; :iSi2i#@;             
     rA2522553X5i5X2isrri22555XhhX5SrsissiissiS222XXXX22X9AHhsS2:;S5S2rA@i              
     SM22252XAh22X33X25irrsiSiiiisr;;rrrrriiS25XXXX3hXXhGAHB&2hAXA3S2rX@r               
     5B225S2GX2i55XG&A&9SiiSisrrrrssssrrsiiS22X33XXXXX9h&AMMA3i;;SA3s9@3                
     2M2X5S2XS;;iS5XXXhhX22XXisiiiiiiiiSSSS52222XX22XXX3AAH#H9i;;riiH@h                 
     SBXX2Xh35SXX225SiXAG22X25Siiii55522Sii5S52223XX93X9G&B#Xr2352iX@2                  
     r#BA&M@@#HAA&M#AAH&2sS2Siiiiii222222Sii5SS529G9399&hHM#3;;S39#@A                   
     .3#M#@@@@@M@@@@@HXiiiisiissrii5255552SS2X293hh2XGA&ABMB@#&A#@@h                    
      :@#H###@MM@###HAAXX25SSSisriis5555SS522X3hh&hhGGAAABMM@@HB@#:                     
      :##&HAG9#@@Ah9GAA&&G&hG&3XSiiiiS5225523X9h93XXG&AAAB###BGA@h                      
      ,A@#MHAX522is2&AB#BGHHGAG22sssS5S522233999X393GA&BMHH##H&H@M                      
       rBHH#@@@#MA9939ABBMMBAAA9XSssi5SSS523X3h99GG&AAAHBHB#MBHH@@                      
       ,@B9hA&HM@@@@#&&AHHH##&A#AiiSiii525239hh99&AAAHHHHMMMBBB#@@                      
       :@@MA9Xi2AHG3XX3G&5rSG&G&92isiS522Xh9339hG&AABHAAHMMMHHM#@@                      
       ,@@@M##AAA&&&&HAhisiii3HA9X52222XXX9&hhG3&HAHAAHABBHBHAM#@@                      
        r@@#M@@@@@@#BA33XXGh9&B@#9hG923h933399&AAAABHAHHBBMHBBB#@@                      
         r@@AGH####BA3X52ABMBAM@#AA9GGhG93XXhh9AAGAHAA#MBMMAB##@@@                      
          H@#HG9G32X3X5SS9BABMB###GhhGh223X3hhGG&AHAHHBBBHAAM##@@#                      
          ;#@@A9&AA&h39hhhBBAHHHM#Ah333XX9X99AAAAAAHHHAHHAHHM##@@#                      
           B@@#A&B#H9XAHBGABHAAH#B&3XXhGhh99&AAAAAHBHAAA&&HHM#BB@&                      
           ,#@@@BB#HhAA#@BHBM@@@@@AXhGh&AAA&AHAAABHAHAA&&ABHBMMh2G:                     
             X@@@@@@@###@@@@@@@@@#&XGGGG&HHAAAAAAAA&AGGGG&AAHBAXsSs.                    
               sB@@@@@@@@@@@@#B&X2XG&&AGGHHABB&AAA&&G3GAG3ABA&XS5s;                     
                 :BH#@@#BAGX2SSX3XG&AAGAA&AAAAG&&&9hGXX99G&BMAXSs;.                     
                  .5S2GM##MAhAHAAAHHHAAHA&AA&GAAhh9X3993XG9&BG2i;.                      
                  .9Xr;ri&#@@@@BB#MMHA&&AAGG&AAh39hXX3X333GAG2r;.                       
                  :hh3ir;;ri&#@@@#BAHAGAAAA&hhh9XX222XX9h9Ahs,.                         
                  ;XXA35srr;rrS9ABMHBAG&&h332S2X25X22XX9h&9S,                           
                  ,si239X5ir;rsii5239X2X2SSS55iSSSS2X39GG3X;.                           
                     :i2XX5irrrsiisiSiiiiiii55555Si23992sr:,                            
                      :sri55isrrssiiiiSSiS522222i53225ir:                               
                       .;r;rSSisrrsiiiiSSS5255225S2Sssr;.                               
                         ,;;rsiSsrrrsssssssiisiSSsrsis,                                 
                           .,:;sssssrssrsssssrssssir,.

Now a different version using the

Block ASCII Character Set: █▓▒░

I also increased the "brightness" so that the face does not require as much characters. It makes it look much cleaner IMO.

                                   ░░                                              
                                ▒████████████████████▓                                  
                          ▒███████████████████████████████                              
                      ░██████████████████████████████████████░                          
                    ████████████████████████████████████████████░                       
                 █████████████████████████████████████████████████▓                     
               ▓████████████████████████████████████████████████████▓                   
              ▓███████████████████████████████████████████████████████▓                 
             ███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████▒               
            ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████              
          ███████████████████████████████████████████████▓█████████████████             
        ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████            
       █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████▓███████            
       ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████           
       █████▒░▓██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████           
       ████▒  ░█████████████████████████▓█████████████████████████▓██████████▓          
       ▓██░    ▓██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████          
        █▒  ░  ▒███▓▓███▓███████▓▓▓▓██████▓▓▓▓▓▓██████████████████████████████          
        █  ░░   ░▓██████▓▓█████▓▓▓▓▓▓▓███████████████▓▓████████████████▓██████          
        █ ░░░     ▒▓█▓▓▓██░▒▓█████████████████████████████████████████████████░         
        ▓ ░░░░                 ░▒█████████▓▓░  ▒▓█████████████████████████████░         
        ▒ ░░░░░                   ░      ░     ▒▓▓█▓██▓███████████████████████          
        ░░░░░░░                                ░▓▓▓███▓▓██████████████████████          
         ▒░░░░░░  ░                            ░▓█▓███▓██████████████████████░          
         ░ ░ ░░   ░                       ░     ▒██▓█████████████████████████           
                                               ░▒▓██████████████████████████▒           
        ▒▒░                                      ▓██▓▓▓██▓▓▓████████████████▒           
      ▒██▓░                            ░░        ░██▓▓▓▓████████████████████            
     ▒█████▓▓▒░                         ░          ▒███▓▓██████████████████▓            
 ░█░   ░███████▒░▒░ ░░░        ░        ░░     ░░   ▒▓█████▓██████▓    ░▒██▒            
        ▓███▒▓▓██▓░ ░▓███████▓▓█▓▓▒▒▒░░░ ░░      ░░░▒█████████▒          ░▓             
        ░▒█▓░░▒███▓▒░░░▒▓██████████▓▓▓▓▓▒░░░░░░▒▒▓▓▓▓████████░            ▒             
        ▒░░▒▓▓███░  ▒▓     ▒█████▓▓▓██▓████▓▒▒░░     ▓████▓██         ▒   ▓             
        ▒░░▒▒░░▓▒    ▒██▒ ░▒▓▓▓▒░ ░▒█░░▒▒░            ▓▓▓█▓█▓░░▒▒     ▒░ ░█░            
       ▒▒▒░▒░ ░░░     ░░░  ░▒▓▒░░   ░              ░  ▒█████▒░▒▓░     ▒░ █▓             
      ▒░░░ ░ ░░░             ░░░░  ░               ░░ ░▒▒▒▓▓░ ░░        ▓█              
      ░      ░░   ░           ░░░░                ░░░░░ ░░▒▒░          ▒█               
      ▒     ░▒░  ░░░░                          ░░░░░░░░░░▒▒▒▒ ░░ ░░   ░█                
      ▒ ░  ░░░    ░▒▒▒▒░                      ░░░░░░░░░░▒▒▓▓▒░    ▒░ ░█                 
      ▒ ░   ░      ░░░░░░  ░░                 ░ ░░  ░░░░▒▒▒▓▒░      ▒█░                 
      ▒░░ ░░░  ░░░░   ░▒░░ ░░                   ░░░░░░░░▒▒▓▓░  ░   ░█                   
      ▒▒▒▒▓██▓▒▒▒▒▓▓▒▒▒▒                        ░░░░░░░▒░▒▓▓░   ░░▓█░                   
       ▓▓▓█████▓█████▒░                      ░ ░░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▓▓░▒▓██░                    
       ▓▓▒▓▓▓█▓▓█▓▓▓▒▒▒░░                    ░░░░▒░░▒░▒▒▒▒▓▓█▓▒▓█▓                      
       ▒▓▒▒▒░░▓██▒░░░▒▒▒▒░▒░░▒░             ░░░░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▓▓░▒█░                      
       ░▓▓▓▒▒░ ░    ▒▒▓▓▒░▒▒▒▒░         ░ ░░░░░░░░░░░▒▒▒▓▒▒▓▓▒▒▒█▒                      
        ▒▒▒▓███▓▓▒░░░░▒▒▒▓▓▒▒▒▒░          ░░░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▓▒▒▒█▒                      
        ▓▒░░▒▒▒▓████▓▒▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▒▒▓▒         ░░░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▓▓▒▒▓█▒                      
        ██▓▒░░ ░▒▒▒░░░░▒▒   ▒▒░▒░        ░░░░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▓▒▒▓▓█▒                      
        ▒██▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒░     ░▒▒░░    ░░░░░▒░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▓▒▒▒▒▒▓▓█▒                      
         ▓█▓▓███▓██▓▒▒░░░░▒░░▒▓█▓░░░░░░░░░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▓▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▒▓▒▒▓█▓                      
          ▓█▒░▒▓▓▓▓▓▒░░ ░▒▓▓▓▒▓█▓▒▒░▒▒░░░░░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▒▓▓▒▒▓▓██▒                      
          ░█▓▒▒░░░░░░░   ░▓▒▒▓▒▓▓▓▒░░░░░ ░░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▒▒▒▒▓▓▓██▒                      
           ▒█▓▒░▒▒▒▒░░░░░░▓▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▒░░░░░░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▓██▒                      
           ░██▓▒▒▓▓▒░░▒▒▓░▒▒▒▒▒▒▓▒▒░░░░░░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▓▓▓▓▓                       
            ▒██▓▓▒▓▒░▒▒▓█▓▒▓▓█████▒░░▒░▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▓▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▓▒▒▓▓░                        
              ▓██████▓▓▓█████████▓▒░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒░▒▒▒▒▒▒░                        
                ▒████████████▓▓▒░ ░░▒▒▒▒░▒▒▒▓▒▒▒▒▒▒▒░░▒▒▒░▒▓▒▒░                         
                  ▒▒▓██▓▓▒▒░░  ░░░░▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒░░▒░░░░▒▒▒▓▒░                         
                     ░▒▓▓▓▓▒░▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░░░░░▒░▒▒░                          
                         ▒▓████▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░░░░░░░▒▒░                           
                    ░░      ▒▓███▓▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░░░  ░░░░░▒░                            
                     ▒░        ░▒▓▓▒▓▒░▒▒░░░   ░  ░  ░░░░▒░                             
                      ░░░         ░░░░ ░            ░░░░▒░                              
                                                    ░░░                                 
                                           ░ ░░   ░░

The 3rd version of the ASCII uses the Character Set: #WMBRXVYIti+=;:,.
I continued to use the higher brightness to make the look of the ASCII more clean and sharp.

I also inverted the colors to have white characters on black background, which is closer to the look and feel of MS DOS. MS DOS used a gray font on black background, but I did not try to make it authentic. I was more going after the looks of it.

                               +###################WI                                  
                          ;B#############################B                              
                       #####################################R                           
                    ############################################                        
                 X################################################V                     
               t####################################################I                   
              Y###################W######################M############V                 
             ####################################WW###########WW########:               
            ######################################################W#######              
          ############################W##################BWWMW#######M#####             
        #############################WW########W#########WW#################            
       ######W########################W#############################MW######            
       ######W#############################W################################M           
       ####Wt;X#####################W##################W##########W##########           
       ###W;  ,#####################W##WBM############WW##########B##########t          
       X##;    X###WW#############M#####################W###W################B          
        #I     ;W#MVR##WR######MRBRRMWW##WBRVVXBMWWW####WM############W######B          
        #       :X##M###XB####BBRRRRBBM#######WMWWMMMBBWM####WM#######MBM#####          
        # .:      ;VBRXR#M;tR#################W#######WW#WW#####W######W######          
        V ,:                    ;B########BX:  +B#MM##W#######################.         
        + ,:.                     .            iRRMBMMV#########W#############          
         .. .                                  :BVVWWWXB#####################M          
         ;                                     .B#BM##B##MW###WMW########WM##           
         ,                                      t#WXW###########W#########M##           
                                                =RMMWW#W###W############MW##=           
        ++.                                      Y#MYRBW#BRRM###########WW##+           
      +##V                                        W#RRXBW###WWMW############            
     =####WIVt,                                    =BW#RR####WW######MW####X            
  #    ,#######+ :  .                               ;B#####BM#####Y     +M#+            
        YM##+RBMWV. ,R######WVXBYI::;,,           ..=M#######Mi          :R             
         iWX:.+W##X;,:,;I#########WRYYRR+ .,  ,itYXVB#####M##,            i             
        ;.;=YRM#W,  =R     +####BYXRMBX###WV+=,      Y####R#M         :   V             
        =;;=i;:Bi    t##=  =VRXi.  IM: ==             VBBWBMY. i;     :. ,#             
       :++:=;  .       .,  :IIi:.   .                 t#####+,iI      :  WX             
      ;:   . :;                    .               ..  ItiRR;           X#              
      .      ,.                ::                  ..   .:+t:          =#               
      =     .+:                                    ,:  :;iII= ., .     #                
      ;     ;.     :;=;                           .   ::=iYVi.    :   #                 
      =               :,                              .,+iIXi.      +#                  
      ;    :.          +:                        ,..:. ,;+YB        #                   
      =i==Y##V+=+=YRi+t;                         ,;:.::=:tYX     .X#,                   
       IIR####WYM#W#Wt.                        ,.:: .=+=iIVIRY:;Y##                     
       VVtXXXMVVMXVRti+                       .::=;:=;i+iIVYMRiIMV                      
       iV=ti;:X#Mi:,;ii;;:;.,,                ,::, .;=++iIXVRY;iM                       
        XXVt+.      =+IRI:ii:;,            ..,,,.,:,;i=IVtIXXt=t#;                      
        +itRMWWRYi:,.,+IIYYI+++.           . .:,:;;=+i+IIIYXVItI#i                      
        Yt,:i=tV####V==iIttRV=iV;          .,::::=i+iIItIVVYYIIV#+                      
        R#Yi:.  it;. ..;+   ;=;;.         :,.,::;=+iIIt+tVVYtIVR#=                      
        i##YVX++i====t+:     .t+,         ,=;:;,+tiItiI+IIIItiYR#i                      
         Y#RYM#WBWWXI+,.  ;:,=YBV.,,  .,,,.,,,=+i+iIt+ttIYYtYIIR#V                      
          R#+;IXXRRY+,   iIYI+V#R+=,;;:;:.. ;:,i+=+t+iXYIVViIVXW#i                      
          ,WVt=:;. .,    ,IiIYIRXX;::;;  . ,::;==itittIYItiiVXRW#;                      
           t#Bi:+i++:.::::YIiIttVXi;,., .,.::+++++itttittitIVVVM#;                      
           .##Vi=IXt:.+tY;+Iti+tRI=...:;;:::=++++iIItiii+=tIYVYIX                       
            =##BYIXt;+iXMItYVMMM#M+.:=:=++i=+t+iiIIiti+==iYtIYY:                        
              YW####MBVBW########B=.;;;;=tti+iii+i+=+==;;=titIt                         
                ;############RY=   ;=+i=;ttiYI=+++==;,;+=.+Ii=.                         
                  ;+X##RY+;.    , ;=+i;+i++ti+====,;; .::=+IV+                          
                      ;VRXY+;+ti+itttiiti=+t+;++:;:.,::,.=:=I;                          
                         =XW##MYYRVYt++=++=;=i+:.::  ,.,.,;+;                           
                    .       ;RMW#RIit+=++++=:::,.     .:::+:                            
                     =         ,+YYIY+;==:..           ::;,                             
                                   .,                ,:;;                               
                                                    .,,

Last but not least the "Geek Version" using only 0 and 1. Well, Matt Cutts is an engineer and geek and probably loving this version the most hehe.

                               1000000000000000000001                                  
                          10000000000000000000000000000000                              
                       00000000000000000000000000000000000000                           
                    00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000                        
                 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001                     
               100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001                   
              100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001                 
             000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001               
            00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000              
          00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000             
        00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000            
       000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000            
       0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000           
       0000011100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000           
       00001   000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001          
       1001    100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000          
        01     100010000000000000000000000001110000000000000000000000000000000          
        0       11000000100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000          
        0         110010001100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000          
        1                       100000000001   1000000000000000000000000000000          
        1                                      1000000100000000000000000000000          
                                                011000100000000000000000000000          
         1                                      00000000000000000000000000000           
                                                10010000000000000000000000000           
                                                10000000000000000000000000001           
        11                                       1001000000000000000000000001           
      1001                                        00001000000000000000000000            
     100000111                                     1000000000000000000000001            
  0     00000001 1                                  100000000000001     1001            
        1000100001   0000000010011111               10000000001          10             
         101  100001 1 110000000000011001      11101000000000             1             
        1 1110000   10     1000001100000000111       10000000         1   1             
        111111 01    1001  11011   101 11             1000001  11     1   0             
       111 11               1111                      1000001 11      1  01             
      11      1                                        111001           00              
                                                          111          10               
      1      1                                         111111          0                
      1     1      1111                                111111     1   0                 
      1                                                 11111       10                  
      1                1                                1110        0                   
      111110011111101111                          1    1 111      10                    
       110000001000001                               11111110111100                     
       1111110110110111                          11111111111001101                      
       111111 1001  11111 1                         1111110101110                       
        11111       1110111111                      11111111111101                      
        1110000011    111111111                  11111111111111101                      
        11 1111100001111111011111                11111111111111101                      
        0011    111    11   1111                111111111111111001                      
        100111111111111       11           11 1 111111111111111001                      
         1001000000111    11 1101             11111111111111111001                      
          00111111011    1111110011 1111    11 1111111111111111001                      
           0111 1         1111101111 11     1111111111111111110001                      
           1001 1111   11 1111111111         111111111111111111001                      
            00111111  1111111111011    111  111111111111111111111                       
            10001111111001111000001  1 1111111111111111111111111                        
              100000001000000000001 111111111111111111111111111                         
                1000000000000011   111111111111111111 111 1111                          
                  111000111       1111111111111111 11    11111                          
                      1101111111111111111111111111       1 111                          
                         1100001101111111111111           111                           
                            1000001111111111  1           1                             
                     1          111111111                1                              
                                                       11                               

Pretty cool, eh? Go check out Photo2Text.com yourself and have fun with it.

It's fun. I actually had that much fun, that I am thinking of creating a little gallery with people in the search engine marketing space in ASCII format. Maybe even people from the affiliate marketing industry. This would maybe bring some people closer to the subject of text art and make them realize that you can do amazing things with something as simple as plain text.

Too bad that the converter does not support ANSI, to create colored version of an image. Maybe they develop a version in the future that supports that.

The history of text art dates back hundreds, if not even thousands of years and were not an invention that came with the computer as many people tend to believe. The first "modern" text art was created on typewriters, which are around for well over 100 years.

I also blogged in the past about things like ASCII animations, called ASCIImation. The music video example that was made up entirely of text was cool too.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC