History - history of ASCII art (part 2).

ZX Zone #02
Note. edit: The title of the section is a little inappropriate for this text, but since I named the section in the first issue `History ASCII-1`, then there was nothing left to do but make the name `Original ria ASCII-2`. ASCII Pic ASCII Pic - one of the simplest and most convenient programs for converting graphic drawings into text ones. The latest version ofASCII Piccan be found on the website w3.to/5679soft. Convenient and simple program interface allows you to easily select the source graphic file in BMP format and the target text file, after which you can start the transformation. DisadvantageASCII Pic - too large sizes of the resulting text image: the program producespixel to text translation drawing without any scaling. Thus, a graphic drawing measuring 80x25 pixels will be represent a text image on the entire screen. Of course, if you are not creating it for programs that run in text mode, then the results of the programASCII Pic may satisfy you. PCX2AUSI PCX2AUSI - just one graphic translation program drawings to text. In addition to converting to ASCII images, The program is also focused on translation into AUSI format. As already mentioned, AUSI files contain special codes that allow you to use color when displaying text file. To correctly view a file created with using AUSI sequences, it is necessary special driver ansi.sys, supplied with earlier MS DOS versions. There are also special programs viewing AUSI files. The advantages of PCX2AUSI are scaling of the original drawing and wide possibilities for settings, including installing a setsymbols, palette when transmitting the colors of the drawing and specifying the font for generation the resulting text file. The disadvantages can be attributed to working on the command line and not very good results when using color images. For obtaining optimal conversion and results scaling it is recommended to set the size source graphic file within 320x200. The last one The version of the program can be found at whg.da.ru. Program Warlock - more than just a text converter files. This is a powerful "graphical" text editor images. The program contains a set of graphic primitives (such as rectangle, circle, filled rectangle, filled circle, line, pencil, eraser, filling the area). Warlock provides the ability to dial text using a variety of fonts. Besides this the program implements a clipboard, and you can work with sections of the drawing, marking them and removing them from the buffer. There is a "magnifying glass" function when editing. Eatoperations of rotation, shifting, horizontal and vertical display of the selected area of the picture. B Warlock provides a choice of the symbol that will be rendering is carried out using a graphic primitive, as well as the color of the symbol itself and the background color. To simplify the process You can use a grid for drawing. Program Warlock is also used to convert a graphic design into text. Warlock supports import of graphic files into BMP and PCX formats, as well as in a less common format PAW. When importing, you can specify the conversion quality picture, brightness level and some other options (for example, the set of characters used to transmit pattern, or the brightness of individual color components). The program, however, does not support full color images, and, for example, a 24-bit image in the format BMP will be converted to grayscale before conversion to text drawing. In addition to graphic images, Warlock can import text pictures in various formats, including a plain text file and a file using sequencesAUSI. Exporting a text image can be produced into text files (in this case, the information about the color of the picture), files with AUSI sequences, source code in Assembly language, C or Pascal (which is extremely convenient if you are a programmer and want to use a text splash screen in your program), as well as some other formats. EditorWarlock is perhaps the most powerful and convenient editor text drawings, providing tools for both creating drawings "from scratch", and for transformation and subsequent editing graphic images. This program is located at the following address: http://eeggs.narod.ru/home/ascii/warlock.rar FIGlet FIGlet - the most common and most common the program used to create inscriptions in the form ASCII drawings. There are versions of FIGlet almost under all known computer platforms, there is even a Web version, allowing you to work using only a browser. For creationlabels FIGlet uses special ASCII fonts are marked in separate files. Collections fonts forFIGletcan be found in large quantities on many sites dedicated to ASCII-art. Various versions FIGlet for different platforms, as well as links to archives fonts and other similarFIGlet programs can be found on developer's website FIGlet. If you need to do any inscription or heading in a text document and you if you want them to look impressive, use FIGlet. GIFscii This is one, probably as common as and FIGlet, the program is GIFscii - converter from graphic file in GIF format into a text picture. B unlike other similar programs (for example, ASCII Pic),GIFscii provides scaling capabilities text drawing, its inversion, enlargement and much more other. Moreover, the results obtained when using GIFscii, often look much better than with using other similar programs. The only one The disadvantage of GIFscii is that it works in text mode and truly Spartan interface (more precisely, almost complete its absence). The program GIFscii is distributed on many sites related to ASCII-art, for example, on an FTP server. B Internet there are a huge number of sites dedicated to ASCII-art and similar manifestations of cyber art. Among them there are websites of the ASCII artists themselves, the contents of the collection original, author's works. Another category of sites ASCII-art are rich collections of text drawings various authors dedicated to a specific topic, and just “stay away” ASCII. By the way, with the help of ASCII Even cartoons and comics are made. Despite everything the increasing dominance of HTML overin plain text in Internet (even in the "stronghold and cradle" of ASCII-art - e-mails), text pictures all still keep their charm and a certain nostalgia for veterans computer technology, and for the new "generation Internet". And although ASCII drawings will never prevail above graphics, there are many uses for them, and even on Internet. Despite the official statement Microsoft,that the art of text drawings is dead for Network, many ASCII artists firmly believe: "ASCII art is alive and everything is still in demand!” Information taken from the site Submarine.ru Corrected technical text by ABS Group 2004 To contents

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