Contents page

Index (83KB)

ASCII art


ASCII art: n. The fine art of drawing diagrams using the ASCII
   character set (mainly `|', `-', `/', `\', and
   `+').  Also known as `character graphics' or `ASCII
   graphics'; see also boxology.  Here is a serious example:

o----)||(--+--|<----+ +---------o + D O L )||( | | | C U A I )||( +-->|-+ | +-\/\/-+--o - T C N )||( | | | | P E )||( +-->|-+--)---+--)|--+-o U )||( | | | GND T o----)||(--+--|<----+----------+

A power supply consisting of a full wave rectifier circuit feeding a capacitor input filter circuit

Figure 1.

And here are some very silly examples:

|\/\/\/| ____/| ___ |\_/| ___ | | \ o.O| ACK! / \_ |` '| _/ \ | | =(_)= THPHTH! / \/ \/ \ | (o)(o) U / \ C _) (__) \/\/\/\ _____ /\/\/\/ | ,___| (oo) \/ \/ | / \/-------\ U (__) /____\ || | \ /---V `v'- oo ) / \ ||---W|| * * |--| || |`. |_/\

//-o-\ ____---=======---____ ====___\ /.. ..\ /___==== Klingons rule OK! // ---\__O__/--- \ \_\ /_/

Figure 2.

There is an important subgenre of ASCII art that puns on the standard character names in the fashion of a rebus.

+--------------------------------------------------------+ | ^^^^^^^^^^^^ | | ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ | | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | | ^^^^^^^ B ^^^^^^^^^ | | ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | +--------------------------------------------------------+ " A Bee in the Carrot Patch "

Figure 3.

Within humorous ASCII art, there is for some reason an entire flourishing subgenre of pictures of silly cows. Four of these are reproduced in Figure 2; here are three more:

(__) (__) (__) (\/) ($$) (**) /-------\/ /-------\/ /-------\/ / | 666 || / |=====|| / | || * ||----|| * ||----|| * ||----|| ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ Satanic cow This cow is a Yuppie Cow in love

Figure 4.