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Do you remember the ancient "character signature"? In the early days when there were no memes or forum signatures that could not send pictures, if you used a unique character picture, you would be a wave rider of the times. The whole string of "beautiful characters" is sent to a friend, and the next second, the friend will copy and forward it to others.

After such a long time, this kind of "garbled picture" still exists. Not long ago, Microsoft developers posted an article on their official blog in which they mentioned a secret: in the early days of Windows 8 development, two "cats" were hidden in the system. Later, considering the occupation of resources, the picture was deleted.

Developers draw the art of "garbled" images through the flexible use of characters. The two "character cats" will appear when the computer screen is black. They stand side by side on the fence, admiring the moon and stars in the sky.

The "cat" on the black screen (Raymond / The Old New Thing) has gone from common character expressions ": -)" to more complex paintings, "garbled" has been played out by people. In foreign countries, this art is also called ASCII art. These "garbled codes" are actually a commonly used coding system on computers-ASCII codes. To put it simply, it contains all the English letters and all kinds of punctuation marks.

It is not so easy to master these "garbled" strokes. It takes some ingenious ideas to draw amazing ASCII art. From pictures and animations to "garbled games", the charm of ASCII codes continues.

ASCII version of Star Wars, asciimation characters can draw, but the style is different. In 1965, programmer H. Philip Peterson used a computer to create a "digital version" of the Mona Lisa-the "strokes" of this painting are all numbers. The painting appeared on the cover of the December 1965 issue of computer and Automation, in which Peterson described the development process.

This should be one of the earliest examples of computer-generated ASCII art. This work is called Mona By the Numbers. Digitalmonalisa.com Peterson sees the Mona Lisa as a figure made up of "pixel" grids. He uses the density of digital characters to form different shades of the picture. For example, dark area numbers will overlap each other, thus outlining the "lines". Peterson's pursuit of "digital art" also made him a computer artist. He later used computer graphics to create portraits of mathematician Norbert Wiener and William Charles Norris, CEO of the famous computer company Control Data Corporation.

Computer "Art Photo" by Norbert Wiener and William Charles Norris? dada.compart-bremen.de, the style of ASCII art, is based on hue, and character density is used to distinguish the light and shade of the work. In addition, with the development of the Internet, another painting style focusing on structure is favored by social networking sites.

Two styles of ACSII paintings, why the one on the right looks like the skin is unfolded! Reference [9] ASCII art based on structure tends to use characters to arrange the line structure of the painting. The focus of this style is not to restore the image one by one, but to present the content in a more pictographic way. Although this kind of picture will use much fewer characters than the previous one, it is more creative.

How many ways can a cat be painted? Ascii.co.uk with the expansion of coded characters, similar forms of character pictures are also playing an important role in the Chinese world. Easy to copy and easy to display also makes it an indispensable trend text in forum signature files and QQ chat boxes.

"I'll step on your space, remember to step back!"

In the early days, there was a special "character signature generator" ASCII art is easy to use and convenient, and even became a carrier of pornography in the early days. The mysterious characters on the 1.4m floppy disk beat the physical image. Just tapping the keyboard can draw a human body of text text, which can be spread by copying and pasting.

Since the evolution of this alternative art form, its meaning is no longer just the picture itself. Jellica, an artist who has made ASCII color maps, said that he didn't think it was too erotic to do it. What was interesting was the production process.

ASCII's creativity doesn't stop there. Some people choose to use "garbled" to create figurative art paintings, while others try to create abstract games with characters.

It's not garbled, it's a world. "is this really a game?"

This is bound to be a puzzle when you open Dwarf Fortress for the first time. The game has neither exquisite scenes and pictures, nor fierce fighting. Dense "garbled" is what the game is all about.

The "garbled code" of the world in the dwarf fortress is actually a complex land of games. The blue ≈ represents the ordinary ocean, n ∩ is hilly, and ⌂⌂ is low mountain. The dwarves in the game are represented by a smiley face symbol 😊, and different letters represent a variety of creatures. The characters ♠ §dg, for example, may present a tense scene in the eyes of players: goblins are hurting a dog tied to a tree.

In this picture, there are various real or imaginary creatures such as dwarves (facial symbols), badgers (gray lowercase b) and giant beetles (red capital B). Dwarffortresswiki in the game, the first thing you need to do is to create a world. You can set the parameters of the world, such as the size of the game continent, the degree of wilderness, the number of minerals, etc. The game will automatically generate the world's resources, rivers, lakes and seas, biosphere and civilization according to parameters and based on the principles of geology, meteorology and biogeography. All of these will appear in the game map in the form of characters.

Create a new world? Kruggsmash\ Youtube in your unique world, forest characters change colors according to seasons, and animal and plant characters form a complete biosphere according to the rules of topography and climate. The earth will generate rivers and lakes according to different rainfall, animals and plants will grow, the food chain will pass, and everything in nature will interact and change in an orderly manner.

Just a forest can subdivide many plants, and plants can also be divided into attributes. Dwarffortresswiki as a player, you need to assign tasks to a group of dwarves to build a successful and rich fortress. As long as you live, you can explore this fantasy world as much as you can. In addition to the main task of controlling dwarves and defending against enemy invasions, you can also raise cats to drink and sleep, hang out in libraries, markets and pubs, and even find out about the love gossip between soldiers and winemakers.

The market in the Dwarf Fortress, dwarffortresswiki game creator (Tarn Adams and his brother Zach Adams) decided to devote their whole lives to making the game, but due to the lack of excellent painting talent and frequent updates, the Dwarf Fortress screen chose to use ASCII to present. Restricted technology has opened up new possibilities for games, and the "crude" interface has also contributed to the advantage that games are easy to spread. You can enjoy such complex game content on almost all kinds of devices.

Today, Dwarf Fortress has launched a novice-friendly improved version of the screen on Steam and Itch.io, but the free version of ASCII art style is still being updated. Everyone who knows it will be amazed because this huge fantasy world is made up of only simple characters.

If you want to make a comeback, you can also make ASCII art. ASCII art originally appeared in the typewriter era, and people may have intended to make printed matter look better. Although this is a compromise under technical limitations, from Star Wars to Dwarf Fortress to the people who continue to create ASCII images, these "garbled" have also been inspired by generations of creators.

The digital version of the Mona Lisa in 1965 contained 100 million pixels and took 14 hours to make. And if you want to experience retro-style ASCII art now, just search for "picture conversion ASCII" on the Internet, and various programs and tools can convert pictures in a few seconds. (tip: please refer to the privacy policy before using the relevant website to avoid using pictures with personal privacy)

Of course, you can also try to start with the simplest numbers, manually tap the keyboard, and use the "equal width font" in the text box to draw your garbled picture.

While technology supports the dissemination of high-resolution pictures and videos, and even virtual reality experiences, ASCII art, an early product of the Internet age, is fading away. But you can also try to use the simplest carrier to see the world from another perspective.

reference

[1] 'The cats sitting on a fence in early builds of Windows 8.9, February 8th, 2022, accessed 22 March 2022.

[2] Star Wars ASCII mation., accessed 22 March 2022.

[3] 'Star Wars: the' Asciimation'', JUL 27, 1999

< https://www.wired.com/1999/07/star-wars-the-asciimation/>

, accessed 22 March 2022.

[4] The Dwarf Fortress Wiki.accessed 22 March 2022.

[5] Dwarf Fortress.accessed 22 March 2022.

[6] A beginner's Guide to Dwarf Fortress: how to get started with this hardcore to the extreme game, Aug 12, 2017

< https://www.gcores.com/ articles / 26517>

Accessed 22 March 2022.

[7] 'Dwarf Fortress Is Finally Getting Non-ASCII Art, And It Looks Way Better', MAY 09, 2020

< https://screenrant.com/dwarf-fortress-graphics-art-tile-map-ascii-update/>

Accessed 22 March 2022.

[8] 'Where Do Dwarf-Eating Carp Come From?', July 21, 2011

< https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf-fortress.html>

Accessed 22 March 2022.

[9] Miyake, Katsunori, Henry Johan, and Tomoyuki Nishita. "An interactive system for structure-based ASCII art creation." Proc. NICOGRAPH Int (2011): 4-3.

[10] H. Philip Peterson.accessed 22 March 2022.

[11] Peterson, H. Philip. "The Digital Mona Lisa." Computers and Automation 14 (1965).

[12] Xu, Xuemiao, Linling Zhang, and Tien-Tsin Wong. "Structure-based ASCII art." ACM SIGGRAPH 2010 papers. 2010. 1-10.

[13] 'The Lost Ancestors of ASCII Art.', JAN 31, 2014

< https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/the-lost-ancestors-of-ascii-art/283445/>

Accessed 22 March 2022.

[14] 'The Surprisingly Rich History of ASCII Art.', 11 Mar 2018

< https://thenewstack.io/surprisingly-rich-history-ascii-art/>

Accessed 22 March 2022.

[15] 'The History of ASCII (Text) Art.'

< https://www.oocities.org/spunk1111/history.htm>

Accessed 22 March 2022.

[16] Bob Neill, D.I.Y. Typewriter

< https://loriemerson.net/2013/01/18/d-i-y-typewriter-art/>

Accessed 22 March 2022.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: fruit Shell (ID:Guokr42), author: Chen Mou, Editor: window knocking Rain, Owl

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