Editing ASCII art (section)

==History==
===Typewriter art===
[[File:Brooklyn-Daily-Eagle-1875-01-06 (cropped).png|thumb|alt=A portion of the [[Brooklyn Daily Eagle]], 6 January 1875, showing an advertisement made from typewriter art.|"Typewriter art" advertisement in the ''[[Brooklyn Daily Eagle]]'', 6 January 1875]]
Since 1867, typewriters have been used for creating visual art.{{better source needed|date=August 2013}}<ref name="joanstark">{{cite web |last= Stark|first= Joan G.| author-link= Joan Stark|title= The History of ASCII (Text) Art| date= 2001| access-date  = 5 March 2008| archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20091026141759/http://geocities.com/SoHo/7373/history.htm| archive-date = 26 October 2009 |url-status= dead|url= http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/history.htm}}</ref><ref>
{{cite web| url=http://www.typewritermuseum.org/lib/library_art2.html| title= Typewriter Art| last = Robert| first= Paul| date = 11 May 2005| publisher = The Virtual Typewriter Museum| access-date = 5 March 2008}}
</ref> Typists could find guides in books or magazines with instructions on how to type portraits or other depictions.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2013-01-18 |title=D.I.Y. Typewriter Art |url=https://loriemerson.net/2013/01/18/d-i-y-typewriter-art/ |access-date=2024-09-16 |website=loriemerson |language=en}}</ref>

===TTY and RTTY===
[[File:Dag Hammarskjöld - ASCII - teleprinter art -1962.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Dag Hammarskjöld]], printout from [[teleprinter]] 1961–1962]]
TTY stands for "TeleTYpe" or "TeleTYpewriter", and is also known as [[Teleprinter]] or Teletype.
RTTY stands for [[Radioteletype]]; [[character set]]s such as [[Baudot code]], which predated ASCII, were used. According to a chapter in the "RTTY Handbook", text images have been sent via teletypewriter as early as 1923.<ref name="rttyhb">{{cite book| last= Green| first= Wayne| title= RTTY Handbook| publisher = G/L Tab Books| location = [[Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania]]| date= June 1972| isbn= 0-8306-2597-6}}</ref> However, none of the "old" RTTY art has been discovered yet. What is known is that text images appeared frequently on radioteletype in the 1960s and the 1970s.<ref name="joanstark"/><ref>
{{cite web| url = http://www.rtty.com/gallery/rttyeasy.htm| title= New Pag| website= www.rtty.com | access-date = 19 October 2017}}</ref>

===Line-printer art===
In the 1960s, [[Andries van Dam]] published a representation of an electronic circuit produced on an [[IBM 1403]] [[line printer]].<ref>[http://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1967/5069/00/50690601.pdf "A compact data structure for storing, retrieving and manipulating line drawings"] by Andries Van Dam & David Evans</ref> At the same time, [[Kenneth Knowlton]] was producing realistic images, also on line printers, by overprinting several characters on top of one another.<ref name="sip1"/>
Note that it was not ASCII art in a sense that the 1403 was driven by an [[EBCDIC]]-coded platform and the character sets and trains available on the 1403 were derived from EBCDIC rather than ASCII, despite some glyphs commonalities.

===ASCII art===
[[File:ASCII full.svg|thumb|There are 95 printable ASCII characters, numbered 32 to 126.]]
The widespread usage of ASCII art can be traced to the computer [[bulletin board system]]s of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The limitations of computers of that time period necessitated the use of text characters to represent images. Along with ASCII's use in communication, however, it also began to appear in the underground online art groups of the period.

An ASCII comic is a form of [[webcomic]] which uses ASCII text to create images. In place of images in a regular comic, ASCII art is used, with the text or dialog usually placed underneath.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Chute|first1=Hillary L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I64VBAAAQBAJ&q=ascii+comic&pg=PA10|title=Comics & Media: A Special Issue of "Critical Inquiry"|last2=Jagoda|first2=Patrick|date=11 July 2014|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-23908-8|language=en}}</ref>

During the 1990s, graphical browsing and [[variable-width font|variable-width]] [[Computer font|fonts]] became increasingly popular, leading to a decline in ASCII art. Despite this, ASCII art continued to survive through online [[Multi-user dungeon|MUD]]s, an acronym for "Multi-User Dungeon", (which are textual [[multiplayer]] [[role-playing video game]]s), [[Internet Relay Chat]], [[Email]], [[message boards]], and other forms of online communication which commonly employ the needed [[Monospaced font|fixed-width]].

[[File:Neofetch.png|thumb|Neofetch displaying an Apple logo on [[MacOS Mojave]]]]
ASCII art is seen to this day on the [[Command line interface|CLI]] [[Application software|app]] [[Neofetch]], which displays the [[logo]] of the [[Operating system|OS]] on which it is invoked.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Neofetch Creates Colorful System Information Screens using Ascii Art |url=https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/neofetch-creates-colorful-system-information-screens-using-ascii-art/ |access-date=2022-07-10 |website=BleepingComputer |language=en-us}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Sneddon |first=Joey |date=2020-05-15 |title=NeoFetch: See System Information from the Command Line on Linux |url=http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/11/neofetch-terminal-system-info-app |access-date=2022-08-08 |website=OMG! Ubuntu! |language=en-GB}}</ref>

===ANSI===
ASCII and more importantly, [[ANSI escape code|ANSI]] were staples of the early technological era; terminal systems relied on coherent presentation using color and control signals standard in the terminal protocols.

Over the years, [[warez]] groups began to enter the ASCII art scene.<ref>{{cite web| last= Necromancer| title= History of the PC Ascii Scene| website= [[textfiles.com]]| date= 6 March 1998| url= http://artscene.textfiles.com/history/essays/pcascii.txt| access-date = 5 March 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080215200828/http://artscene.textfiles.com/history/essays/pcascii.txt| archive-date = 15 February 2008| url-status     = live}}</ref> Warez groups usually release [[.nfo]] files with their software, [[Software cracking|cracks]] or other general software reverse-engineering releases.<ref>{{cite web| author= Defacto2| url= http://www.defacto2.net/documents.cfm| date= 2008 | title= Defacto2 – Scene Documents, text and NFO files| publisher= defacto2.net | access-date= 5 March 2008| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080312071317/http://www.defacto2.net/documents.cfm|archive-date= 12 March 2008| url-status= live}}</ref> The ASCII art will usually include the warez group's name and maybe some ASCII borders on the outsides of the release notes, etc.<ref>[http://www.defacto2.net/documents.cfm NFO Files collection at Defacto2.net, with NFO files that date back to 1989]. Retrieved 17 February 2008.</ref>

[[Bulletin board system|BBS]] systems were based on ASCII and ANSI art, as were most [[DOS]] and similar [[System console|console]] applications, and the precursor to [[AOL]].