Digging in the Cache is a series where we go back in time to look at fun tidbits of Internet and computer history. Way back when (ok, not really that long ago), computers and printers did not have graphics capabilities. If you wanted to make pictures, you were stuck with the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII standard. Some of the oldest known examples were created around 1966 by Kenneth Knowlton, who was working at Bell Labs at the time. While computers (and phones and tablets, etc.) have graphical capabilities these days, ascii-style art is still used in text-based communications like email, text messages and Tweets.
Complex pictures such as the one below are even possible using only text characters:
Most ASCII art is limited to emoticons or smileys. Like 🙂 or :S, but even novices can make some more interesting pictures like:
@]–‘-,—–
What’s your favorite ascii art?
See Wikipedia article on ASCII Art for more info.
(ascii art image by ° o O °o O ° ° o °, on Flickr)
(tank & truck image via Wikipedia.org)
