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Who am I? My real name is Carsten, but I am better known as
Roy<SAC> from the numerous NFO file logos of pirate scene groups that
were tagged with that name.
Next to ASCII art for what I am probably best know for, I also did ANSI art. I actually
started with ANSI art first. I don't know for sure exactly on which day I did create my
first piece of text art, because I lost the original file of my first ANSI that I ever
created. I only have the version that I converted to a .COM executable in September 1993.
However, I do have the original of my second ANSI that I made and the third as well. The
second ANSI was created on February 17, 1992 and my third one on February 21, 1992. This
lets to the assumption that I created my first ANSI either on February 17,
1992 as well or only a few days before that date.
Before I did text art, I already experimented with pixel art, which I started to get my
head around at some time in 1991. My interest in pixel art also lead to my friend
(Ufonaut/TUAG->Xerox->Extacy), giving me the copy of an ANSI editor and the request
to create one for the WHO (Melmac BBS in Berlin/Germany) of the warez group he just joined
as coder and cracker. I do not remember his exact words, but they were along the following
lines: "You like doing art stuff, right? Try this out and see, if you can get something out
of it that looks nice.".
You can have a look at all three of my first ANSIs further down below. Also a
bit further down are examples of my early "big hits" that became known throughout the scene. If you still have
no clue what I am talking about, I suggest visiting my ASCII Art Academy to
familiarize yourself with the subject matter. I also recommend checking the academy out to everybody
else as well, btw :).
I was also a "sysop" and ran my own Bulletin Board System (BBS) between 1994 and 1998
called Closed Society.
Learn more about my BBS or "Board".
Although my active scene history started in earlier 1992, my computer history started already 4-5 years before that, while I was still living behind the "Iron Curtain" in the Former East Germany, the communist part of Germany, officially known as "GDR" or "German Democratic Republic". I still have memories about some events when I had my first exposures to the creations of the early demo and warez scenes that just started to emerge of the classic 6 bit home computers that were available at that time and who's pupularity began to get bigger and bigger, on both sides of the "Iron Curtain".
I wrote about some of those earlier episodes of my "computer-related" life at my personal blog already. You you are interest in this and would like to learn the details, read the my post "The First Demo That I Saw in my Life"
Yeah, I was 15 years old and in Berlin when the Berlin Wall "fell" on November 9, 1989. I get the question a lot follwed by question about how it was like from my perspective, I sad down and wrote a blog post to this subject as well, check it out, if you are interested in this particular aspect and segment if my life. See: The Fall of the Berlin Wall - Personal Account of Events".
If you want to contact me, use the form at contact
page to leave me a message.
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Here are some examples of my Art Work. Click on the Thumbnail to
enlarge. The Asciis and Ansis are converted versions of the original in gif-format. The
complete collection of my ANSI, ASCII and VGA Art in original Format is available for
download at my
download page (art created between 1991 and 2003 only) .
The examples are only meant to give you an overview of the broad range of Text and Pixel
Art I did over the years. I did hundreds of ASCIIs and ANSIs, not that much Pixel Art
though.
Additional Screenshots of ANSI/ASCII Text Art and VGA created by me
are also available at my Deviant Art Homepage..
Deviant Art is a free and interactive online community for Artists and Art Lovers. Artists
can interact and als publish their Art. Art Enthusiasts can purchase Artwork directly from
the Artists who offer their Art for Sale at Deviant Art.
You should check it out, if you are an Artist yourself or just interested in Art.
I am sure you noticed already the links to my Art Galleries here on my web
site. I put all my ANSI and ASCII Text Art online for everybody to see.
All pieces can be viewed almost 100% accurate via Web Browser without the need to install
any Software or Browser Plug-Ins.
I also published my VGA Pixel Art and some of my newer Web Art Work (Banners and that kind
of stuff).
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My Most Popular Deviations
at deviantART.com
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.oOo. Top .oOo.
A short trip back
in time...
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| 1st ANSI |
2nd ANSI |
3rd ANSI |
Other Early ANSIs from 1992 |
<- My very first ANSI was an ANSI for a BBS titled
"Melmac BBS". The "XEROX WHY" used to be blinking white instead of having the gray
background.
A friend who just got his 14.4 KB modem and joined the group "Xerox" as cracker (and I got
his 2400 Baud modem) said to me that they need an ANSI for their BBS. "Hey Carsten, you
like to do graphics and stuff, we need something like this ..." and showed me some examples
of ANSI BBS Ads (they sucked for the most part, thankfully). I said, "sure, I will try, how
do I make those?". He gave me this tool called ANSIDraw and I started
playing with it. This was in mid to early February 1992.
They liked and used by first ANSI, which was encouraging. I saw a bit later the first ACID
and ICE art packs and realized that I suck at ANSI :). But I did not give up, because of
the acceptance of my early art and because I realized that a lot of folks who do ANSIs
(especially in Germany) suck even more than I do. The rest is ANSI and ASCII art history.
<- My 2nd ANSI was for myself, a "Roy" ANSI.
Blatant self promotion, excessive ego and a distorted self image :).
I still have the original at the creation date is: February 17, 1992.
I assume that I did my first ANSI that you can see above either on that same day or maybe
one or two days before that. It could not have been too long. I remember that I created my
first 3-4 ANSIs within a relatively short period of time. When I say 1st, 2nd and 3rd, I
have to clarify that this refers to the ANSI attempts that I actually kept and not
deleted/discarded. I had to get used to the software, not to mention to the limitation of
ANSI colors and text characters itself. I talk about those experiences in the next
paragraph further down.
 <- My 3rd ANSI,
"ACC", was for the first BBS I ever dialed into. The BBS was running on a
Commodore AMIGA 2000 and "Fast Call BBS" software. I found out to my surprise that
the BBS was right where I lived, in walking distance from my parents home (that is
close for Berlin).
I also still have the original ANSI file for this one. It was created on February 21,
1992.
I got to know the Sysop and "saw" the BBS. The sysop also showed me AMIGA demos after I
told him about PC Demos like the "new mega demo" from Future Crew that blew everybody away
back then ("Unreal" in summer 1992) and demos like Triton's Crystal Dream (1) and Cascada's
Chronologia.
 <- Early ANSI ... I saw
Odyssey by Alcatraz, Hardwired by The Silents and Crionics and the Razor 1911 Mega
Demo, which were released at the very first "The Party" in Denmark in December 1991,
just a couple months earlier.
That got me interested into the demoscene. I also became his Co-Sysop. I became Co-Sysop
of another BBS in the United States, which eventually led me to start my own BBS in 1994
right from my first own apartment (studio) after I moved out from my parents :).
.oOo. Top .oOo.
 I created my first ANSI in spring 1992 for a BBS called "Melmac"
(yes, the Sysop's pseudonym was "Alf" :)). The ANSI is available in my Art Collection which
can be dowloaded at my download page. Unfortunately is my very first ANSI only available as
".com" executable. The original ".ans" Text File got lost years ago.
I created Screenshots of my first ANSIs and you can see them below. The screen shots
include my very first ANSI for Melmac BBS, my 2nd ANSI - self titled ROY, my 3rd
ANSI for ACC BBS (my first BBS), the ACC was blinking, but that works only under MS DOS.
Last but not least another Melmac BBS ANSI, which is also one of my earliest ANSIs. It
replaced my first ANSI as "Ad" for the BBS. You can also see, that I started experimenting
with Font shapes. They are not pretty, but anybody has to start somewhere. I have no reason
to hide them. I hope they encourage some of the artists out there who think that their art
sucks and that they can not do it. That's BS. Yes, you can, stop whining.
I used a program called Ansidraw which was a real piece of junk. The maximum number of lines per
ASCII or ANSI the program was able to support was 23 (which is exactly 2 lines less than a
page in DOS. Anything above 23 lines triggered a "pause", if "page breaks" were not
disabled.)
It was unable to load ansis which meant, that you had to get the colors right the first
time or you had to load the ANSI as ASCII (without colors) and start colorizing from
scratch ... argh. You can download Ansidraw here and experience the pain yourself, it's only 20 KB in
size.
There is a number of tools available for download, including a number of ASCII/ANSI text
editors for MS DOS and Windows at my download page.
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My interest in text art lead me to the co-founding and leading of the German underground
art scene group "Superior Art Creations", or SAC in short. The name was my idea, so
if you don't like it, blame it on me. :).
SAC was actually the second group that I co-founded. The first one was the "trainers and
cheats" group "Cardinals" (also my idea). The reason for the creation of SAC was
simple. Europe did not have a strong text art scene like in the United States. Most U.S.
art packs did not even make it across the atlantic at first, except for the ones from the
top groups like ACiD, ICE or CiA. I only recall ICE Europe to be around and
nothing else. I was thinking about applying to ACiD or iCE and had contact with one old
ACiD and also iCE member with the name "Black Spyrit". I called his BBS, "Spyrits
Crypt" and showed him some of my ANSI work. He encouraged me, but suggested to hold off a
little bit, before I apply. That was in 1993.
In 1994 I saw ANSI art popping up in Boards in Berlin from other local artists. There were
still no European art groups around and no packs to consolidate artwork that was created by
various individual artists. Blueboxing was also not reliable working anymore, which caused
communication across the atlantic to be constantly on and off.
I was in touch with some of the other artists, but it wasn't until Hetero came to
visit me in person for the first time, together with Dr.Lazy (both LKCC), that
became serious of founding our own group. I elaborated this with Hetero and he fellt the
same. A few phone calls to some other artists in town the coming days and SAC was
born.
SAC was not like an ACiD or iCE. SAC started to release packs every three months. Members
worked very independent and everybody within the group had usually strong ties to the warez
scene as well. Art requests were received and fulfilled by each artist directly. This
process was never a centralized one. Check out the separate section on my site about the
art scene group Superior Art
Creations, its history and the art that was created by its members since 1994.
The role of the leader primarily the task (which wasn't always simple) to collect the new
Art Work produced by Members and put the new SAC Art Pack together, update the Groups NFO
File and to release the Pack. This was not a problem because the Leader of SAC (Roy) was
also the Sysop of the SAC World headquarter BBS called "Closed Society".
For a more detailed story about how it was like to start and run the group, check out my blog post A Tale About A Group Called Superior Art Creations from January 2010.
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I still do some ASCII Art from time to time so if you need an ASCII (or ANSI for
that matter) contact me. Let me know what the
ASCII should "say" and what it is for (to give me ideas). I will respond to ALL
requests with the answer, if I am doing it or not. Worst case scenario is that I add it to
my Queue and will do it eventually when I have the time. This might work for some that are
not as much in a hurry and urgent need of an ASCII.
Important Update!
I am currently not accepting any requests for new ASCIIs or ANSIs due
to time constrains.
Alternative OptionsI made all my ANSIs and ASCIIs officially public domain in 2006 and
refined that statement on August 24, 2008. You are free to pick any piece
of my previous ANSI or ASCII text art you like from my ASCII art, ANSI art and Best of (ANSI and ASCII)
galleries and create something out of the hundreds of ASCIIs and ANSIs by yourself.
I have also the tools needed to do that available at my download page. I am
sorry, but I did already disappoint several other people who requested an ASCII or ANSI
from me and I
had to apologize for that. I won't do it again. Sorry mate.
I also want to make clear that this is not a money issue. I never took money for my art
work and won't start taking any now. If I agreed to do an ASCII or ANSI, I did it without
asking for anything in return. I simply don't have the time and motivation for doing any
request work anymore. I am concentrating more on the preservation of what already exists
and making it accessible to people who are interested in it. I am maybe creating 1-2 ASCIIs
or ANSIs per year now and those are typically no external requests. I hope that the vast
amount of content that I created throughout the years and made available for re-use and
re-purposing on my site will help you with fulfilling your own needs.
Tips for Finding Another ArtistIf your artistic skills are like not existent and
you absolutely need the help of an artist for your required art work, then you might want
to pay a visit to the IRC channels #SAC, #ACID and similar (on
EFNet) to spot an text artist who is still active and willing to take on new
requests.
You might also want to try to contact one of the following fellow artists (who are more or
less active or on and off in unspecified time intervalls). The social network for artists,
DeviantArt.com is a good place to get in touch and voice your needs. Here are the
links to the user profiles of Sodium N4, Bym, Zerovision/Blocktronics, Tainted XL and Enzo.
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... since 1992 (Chronologically)
Icon LegendAny flag icon represents a language and not a country!
| Group Types |
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Games |
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Tools & Applications |
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Trainers/Cheats |
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Artwork/Intros |
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Courier Group/Swappers |
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PCBoard Tools/PPEs |
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| Personal Status |
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Founder/CO-Founder & Leader |
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Leader |
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Founder/Co-Founder |
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Group Member |
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| BBS Status (Closed Society) |
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World Headquarter |
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European Headquarter |
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Headquarter / German HQ |
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Member Board |
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Distribution Site |
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The Group List
| Logo |
Group |
Type, Lang, My/My BBS Status |
Archive |
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CDS - Cardinals |
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Note: The whole group merged into TRSI
in 1994. |
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TOaO - The One and Only |
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TRSI - Tristar & Red Sector Inc. & FTH - Faith |
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THHG
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Note: Unknown German group. I can't even
find an NFO file for them anymore. |
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CBX - Cybrix |
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SAC - Superior Art Creations |
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ETN - Eternity |
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DTC - Dytec (Dynamic Technologies)
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Note: Dytec was an old group founded by
Fatman on the Commodore 64. It was also active on the Amiga. It became first active
on the PC as a sub section of group "complex" of Genesis (games/english/floppy
disc), TDU-Jam (games/english/cd-rip), Assault (apps), Dytec (games/german/floppy
discs).
Floppy discs faded away and so did Genesis. TDU-Jam became the main group. When
TDU-Jam died, Dytec became an independent group again (now also releasing German
CD-Rips). Dytec merged later with Vortex and EOD to form the new German games
release group "Dynasty (DNS)". Learn more about Dytec, its history, cracktros and ASCII artwork.
and Learn more about Dynasty, its history, cracktros and Artwork. |
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GNS - Genesis / TDU - TDU-Jam
ASL - Assault |
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Note: Also see nodes for Dytec above.
Genesis emerged from the game release group PTG - Pentagram and released english
games (floppy disks). The "low-quality" sub label of GNS for early CD-Rips was
TDU-Jam. TDU stands for "The Digital Underground", which was the name of the BBS of
Dr.Insanity, who was a senior member of GNS and WHQ.
ASL - Assault was founded to release apps and utils. Since most of the
senior staff of Dytec PC joined GNS, Dytec became the German Games release label in
this group "holding". There was also a German "lamer-releases" section for German
Kiddy Games CD-Rips etc., but I forgot the name of it.
GNS died naturaly, because fewer and fewer games were released on floppy
disks. TDU-Jam became the main group (now not considered "low-quality" anymore. As
most big groups, also this one died eventually. |
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LSD - Light Speed Distributors |
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PNS - Peanuts
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Note: The group was formed of the
SAC-PPE section members, when the SAC-PPE section was separated from the scene art
group SAC. |
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BLH - Backlash |
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DNS - Dynasty
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Note: The group was formed by the merger
of the three German release groups Dytec (DTC), Empire of Darkness (EOD) and Vortex
(VTX). I have some goodies from the times back then for all the German folks out
there. It's writting in German language.
Szene
Beobachter #1 Jan/Feb 1997 and Szene Beobachter
#2 Mar/Apr 1997. Enjoy!
Learn more about Dynasty, its history, cracktros and Artwork.
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LKCC - Last KC Computer Club |
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RZR - Razor 1911
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Note: See the website of the Razor 1911 Demo
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CPI - Canadian Pirates, Inc.
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.oOo. Top .oOo.
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