If you've ever written on an 80085 calculator (boobs), or drawn pixel art in a notebook, you've already joined the ranks of these digital painters. But let's start at the beginning: long before computers, people were already creating masterpieces from letters, symbols, and even typewriters.
At the beginning of the 20th century, when the internet was as distant as common sense in politics, there was a phenomenon called "print art." Newspapers and magazines decorated texts with intricate patterns of letters, creating ornaments, portraits, and even full-fledged scenes. It was a kind of ASCII art, only on paper, and it appeared due to the limitations of printing houses, which could not afford the luxury of full-fledged illustrations.
One of the most famous early examples of text art can be considered the so-called "typewriter drawings," paintings created with a typewriter. People obsessed with boredom or creativity (and sometimes both) have been typing repeating symbols to recreate faces, buildings, and even famous works of art for a hundred years now. Imagine someone reading your accounting report and hiding the profile of Alexander the Great between the tables.
But let's move on to the digital world. The real heyday of ASCII Art came in the 1960s, when programmers, deprived of graphical interfaces, began to have fun with what they had - ASCII characters. Instead of Photoshop, they had a space, an asterisk, and a colon. However, for some, this was enough to invent an entire genre. Never mind where taxpayers' money went, sometimes naive, stupid things at first glance can later become something great, important, popular, and even valuable. Such experiments go down in history on par with space flights or the invention of gunpowder.
One of these pioneers was Kenneth Knowlton, who developed the technique of “computer mosaic” in 1966. He and his colleagues created portraits using symbols of varying density to simulate shadows and light. In an era when computers were the size of refrigerators, such things seemed like real magic.
In the 1970s, ASCII Art penetrated deeper into popular culture, including thanks to the emergence of ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet. Researchers and geeks exchanged ASCII images in emails, because attaching pictures was as easy as transporting an elephant in a minibus. Yes, yes, graphic file formats already existed, as did computer graphics, but still in limited circles, in rare films (Star Wars, for example).
And in the 1980s, ASCII Art became an integral part of BBS (Bulletin Board Systems). When the internet was slow and modems made sounds like mechanical demons, images had to be text-based. Hacker group logos, pixelated skulls, and all sorts of cyberpunk aesthetics appeared on users’ screens. Some images became digital tattoos of sorts, symbols of underground communities. Some BBSs featured animated ASCII scenes that slowly loaded line by line, like neon signs on night streets.
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Various information boards, such as those used at train stations, airports and stock exchanges, also contributed to the development of ASCII Art. Limited in resolution and color palette, they became a kind of digital canvas. Some craftsmen even managed to program animations on these boards, turning rows of symbols into moving objects.
The use of ASCII art in web design can often be seen in the Small Web, an interesting phenomenon. Small Web is a movement aimed at creating minimalist, independent and lightweight sites, often contrasted with the overloaded modern Internet. ASCII art fits this concept perfectly: it doesn’t require complex graphic libraries, loads instantly even on weak devices, and conveys a sense of nostalgia. Many geeks decorate their websites with ASCII logos, stylized titles, and decorative elements reminiscent of early computer interfaces. But why? Perhaps it’s the aesthetics of minimalism, the desire to escape the standardized design of modern websites, or simply a love for the era when every pixel was worth its weight in gold.
Geeks often stylize their websites to look like old operating systems or make them look like MS-DOS program interfaces. This is not just a matter of aesthetics, but also an attempt to recreate the spirit of the early computer era, when users had a deeper understanding of how technology works. Such design conveys a sense of control, functionality, and purity that is missing from modern web pages overloaded with animation and advertising. It is also a way to emphasize their belonging to an alternative Internet culture that values knowledge, experimentation, and autonomy.
Modern software that uses ASCII art can be found in a variety of areas. For example, terminal utilities such as neofetch use ASCII logos to display system information. Retro gaming programs, banner generators, and demoscene projects often include ASCII graphics as part of the interface or screensavers. Even in modern chats, ASCII art lives on in the form of all sorts of bots and meme generators. Years ago, this could be seen in the description of computer games, or at the very start before the game loads, in tutorials, or in various hacks and .bat files for games.
Famous computer viruses also left their mark on the history of ASCII art. For example, the "Casino" virus for MS-DOS displayed a slot machine on the screen, and the "QWalker" virus drew an animated man walking across the screen. In an era when hackers were more interested in creative expression than data theft, many viruses were accompanied by ASCII signatures of their creators - a kind of graffiti of the digital world.
The demoscene that began in the 1980s has always had a strong focus on ASCII art. Text demos featured complex drawings, while graphic demos featured ASCII elements combined with cheesy pixel effects. In the 1990s, ASCII contests became popular, where artists competed to create the most complex and detailed text images. Even today, such contests are held at demoparties such as Revision and Evoke.
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) became the home of ASCII art, text-based RPGs, and all sorts of character-based entertainment. IRC channels featured entire emoji battles, complex ASCII drawings that appeared line by line, and even automated bots creating ASCII animations. In AD&D-based text RPGs, characters were often described using ASCII characters, and battle scenes and maps were generated directly in chats.
ASCII art exists outside of computers and typewriters. Drawings in ASCII notebooks can be called an analogue of digital ASCII art. Schoolchildren and students draw diagrams, figures of crosses and zeros, signatures in the style of hacker logos and even complex drawings in the margins of notebooks. It's like an offline version of the same aesthetics that later migrated to the world of computers. Fun fact about offline ASCII art: Kevin Mitnick, one of the most famous hackers in history, continued to use ASCII art even from prison. During his imprisonment, he sent letters in which he used text emoticons to convey emotions, remaining true to the spirit of the digital age. For him, it was one of the ways to stay in touch with the community, which saw him not just as a cybercriminal, but as a legend and a symbol of freedom of information.
Text emoticons have become an important part of digital communication. They appeared back in the 1980s and gradually developed into a full-fledged system of expressing emotions. Simple 🙂 and 😉 evolved into complex variations such as ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ and (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻. Eventually, many of them were included in the encoding tables, becoming an official part of Unicode. Now they exist alongside regular characters, preserving the spirit of ASCII art in every chat, letter and comment.
We can’t help but mention the beloved or hated Doom. In 1993, when ID Software released the legendary shooter, ASCII artists began recreating monster and weapon sprites in text format. This was not just entertainment, but a way to adapt art to the limitations of terminals, and not only.
Gopher is a network protocol that was an alternative to the early web in the 1990s. Unlike modern sites, Gopher pages were and are pure text, without decoration or images, which made ASCII art the only way to visually decorate. Many Gopher servers still use ASCII logos, frames, and even small illustrations to stand out from the monotony of text menus. The popularity of ASCII in the Gopher environment is explained by the minimalism and technical limitations that forced users to be creative, working exclusively with text.
In the 1990s, ASCII Art finally took hold on the Internet. It decorated forums, chats, and even websites, where instead of banners, crookedly formatted faces greeted visitors. If you had an email back then, there was a good chance that your signature had a small smiley, a boat, or a cat.
But don’t think that ASCII Art is just a geeky pastime. Artists like Paul Smith (who, while suffering from cerebral palsy, created incredible paintings on a typewriter) proved that art is possible even in the most limited conditions. His works are striking in their attention to detail and patience, because it took him weeks to create one painting.
With the development of the Internet, ASCII Art became a meme. Remember the same “LOLCAT” or endless variations on the theme “( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)”. This style is alive and well in the form of emojis, good old "¯\\_(ツ)_/¯" faces, and even modern NFTs (yes, someone has already managed to sell ASCII art for crypto).
But let's not forget the dark side of history. ASCII Art was not only used for fun. In hacker culture, it was a way to indicate belonging to a certain group. Some attacks were accompanied by ASCII skulls warning of an imminent digital catastrophe. If you saw a giant letter "H" made of zeros and ones on your screen in the 90s, you knew you were hacked.
And what about modern typewriters? Even in the 2020s, there are enthusiasts who print text paintings. Some use them to create works with the most subtle transitions between light and shadow. After all, who needs Photoshop and Illustrator if you have a good old keyboard and a ton of patience?
Today, ASCII Art is everywhere. It appears in advertising, website design, games, and even street art. It can be seen in Linux terminals, on T-shirts, and on the walls of abandoned buildings. Some artists still create huge canvases made only of symbols.
Operating systems have also contributed to the popularization of ASCII Art. In the world of Unix and Linux, ASCII graphics were used for terminal splash screens and program logos like neofetch. Even older versions of Windows included examples of ASCII art hidden in the command line.
I can’t help but mention one interesting and popular genre: ASCII comics.
ASCII comics are a unique genre in which stories are conveyed exclusively using text symbols. They appeared in the early years of the Internet, when graphic capabilities were limited, but users still wanted to share stories and visual art. Such comics were often published in e-mail newsletters, on forums, and in .txt files circulating among computer enthusiasts.
One of the most famous ASCII comics is "Dinosaur Comics" by Canadian author Ryan North. Although the original illustrations were created in regular graphics, enthusiasts transferred them to ASCII, making them accessible even in text environments. This showed that ASCII can be not only a means of decoration, but also a full-fledged tool for storytelling.
Another example is the classic "NetHack Guidebook" and related ASCII comics illustrating funny and deadly moments in text roguelike games. Players used standard game symbols to create scenes with characters, monsters, and traps, adding comments in comic style.
Many ASCII comics were released in ANSI art format and distributed on BBS networks. Some of them were dedicated to cyberpunk themes, mocked corporate culture, or simply depicted everyday funny situations. They became a kind of digital graffiti, reflecting the mood of the hacker community.
In IRC chats, ASCII comics were often used for comedy mini-scenes. Users created characters from standard characters and acted out short stories in real time, using IRC command lines to simulate movement and interaction.
Today, ASCII comics are experiencing a renaissance in small online communities specializing in retro culture and low-tech art. They can be found on Gopher networks, on forums dedicated to old computers, and among programmers who like to joke about their coding adventures with the help of minimalist text scenes.
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... . .... __________________
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___ ///////////\\\\\\\\\\\
/| |\ // | _________ | \\
// \\ # /####|####\ |
| | # |####|####| |
\\ // # |----+----| |
____||_|}______{}________/ |####|####| |
/______________________ |####|####| |
/______________________/ |---------| |
()_____________________/ | J | ||
\_____________________\ | | |/
/X\_____________________\ ___ | &&&& | |
/ -- \_____________/ \__&& && |
/ -- &&& &&& &&& & & |
// --- & @=========@=========@===* & 00 &/==={;)
/ -- ___& 0 &___& 0 &___& 0 &/___& &
/-- & & & & & & *===== @ &&
&&& &&& &&& &&&&
CHWOOO-CHWOOOOOOO!!!!!!
But most importantly, ASCII Art remains a reminder that art can exist even in the most unexpected forms. When you only have text at hand, but you want to draw, you can always make a portrait, an anarchic slogan, or at least a sad smiley from letters. And this is art that will never become outdated.
Turboblack is the pseudonym of a 42-year-old Ukrainian named Dan. He speaks English, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. He enjoys lots of reading, writing, coding, helping people build their websites, drawing templates, and cooking delicious things. As a fan of the retro internet, Turboblack runs the Elpis zine, Web 1.0 Hosting, and HamsterCMS.
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