Re: About rendering ascii code in a .txt medium

> Both printout and gif show ascii art. You conceded that printout show ascii
> art, but you try to deny that the gif show ascii art by tossing up alleged
> prescriptions on medium, typography, storage methods, viewing methods, code
> retrieval methods, etc., all prescriptions that the ascii standard simply does
> not have!

It would seem that you are now changing your story slightly.

Instead of GIF actually BEING ASCII art, you now say it SHOWS ASCII art.
With that statement, I agree.

> You have already failed to provide a quote from the ascii standard on a
> prescription on medium. I think you will fail too in providing quotes on the

And you have failed to provide any quotes from this same standard for your
side of this argument.

> If you disagree, please provide the pertinent quotes. You seem to toss up more
> and more alleged prescriptions as the discussion goes on. In case you want to

Alleged?  What I have been saying all along are the same set of statements,
worded in a number of ways.

Those are (for the record):

The ASCII standard is, by nature of the original use and intent of display
of text including ASCII artwork, a seven-bit code set describing a series of
characters in the range of 32 to 127, and a series of control codes in the
range of 0 to 31.

ASCII artwork, as first created on university computers and mainfraimes
(which were about all that existed back in the day), was meant to be
displayed with a fixed-spaced font.  In those days, there really wasn't much
of a choice in fonts, since one simply had to live with whatever the default
was on any given computer or printer.

The ASCII standard does not contain a single code of any kind that was
intended to change colors, set text size, change the typeface, or alter any
other typographical setting being used by the application in question (that
is, by the program being used to display the text and art).

Programs such as Netscape use the HTML standard (among others), which
requires altering the very meaning of certain characters in the ASCII set,
for use by the media involved.  In the case of HTML, that means redefining
the meanings of the < and > characters so that they are used to indicate
HTML tags.  Special escape sequences are used to allow the browser to
display an actual < or > symbol.

> To me that's the decisive and ONLY criterion for ascii art. That is, if ascii
> code is used, then that's ascii art. If ascii code is not used, then that's
> not ascii art. 

This is why I keep saying that a GIF or other graphical image medium is no
longer ASCII art.  It is no longer using the ASCII code set in any shape or
form.

The question of the printout on paper can be solved simply by assuming what
most people already agree on anyways - the printout is simply a hardcopy of
the actual ASCII artwork.  It is defined as ASCII art possibly because there
really is no code system in use once the ink hits the paper (unless you want
to dig into molecular theories and such).

Of course, one can argue that the printout is not ASCII art, but that's not
the issue here.

Let's put one thing straight now, for the paper analogy:  Regardless of the
format that some piece of artwork exists in, once it becomes ink on paper (a
hardcopy), it can no longer be referred to accurately as the media from
which the picture originated.  In other words a hardcopy of a GIF image is
no longer a GIF.  A hardcopy of an ASCII drawing probably isn't technically
ASCII art either, but again that's not the issue.

> > simple, common sense.  It's an unwritten rule that ASCII art is supposed to
> 
> I suggest you go by the ascii standard rather than by (your own) common sense
> or unwritten rules.

My friend, I am going by the standard. If I weren't, I'd be posting HTML,
GIF, and other non-ASCII images and claiming them to be ASCII artwork.

> There is about 80% easiness and declining. 
> 
> Try sending an ascii rose to your new found love at aol and she can't view it
> correctly. That's 10% of the Internet. Another 10% comes from proportional
> settings in the rest of the Internet.

Well if it'S a one-liner, it won't matter anyways, the size of the rose will
change a little, but that's about it.

But, that first 10% of the internet, being AOL, is indeed a stumbling block.
I've heard of a patch one can do that would allow the use of a custom font
in the AOL newsreader, but I can't verify this.

In other words, I won't argue for or against AOL since I don't have any
experience in that area.

That second 10%, those users with porportional fonts, is a matter of pure
and simple laziness.  That is, unless the user simply doesn't know how to
change the font.   But if they do, and they still complain, then it's a
matter of laziness - too damned lazy to move a mouse around and click a few
icons to change fonts.

> And the stored pic is ascii art, because it is made with ascii code. The ascii
> standard does not prescribe any storage methods, .txt and .gif and myriads
> more storage methods are perfectly legitimite.

The stored image is NOT made with ASCII code.  It was created from ASCII
code, yes.  But it is no longer in the form of ASCII code.

Like I said, don't mince words - just choose what you are tryin to say
carefully to avoid potential grammatical or syntax mistakes.

> You did not provide a quote on the prohibition, since the ascii standard
> contains no such prohibition. What you provided is something else.

What I provided was the control code set for the ASCII standard.  The very
set of codes in that list should speak for itself.  If it does not, I
suggest you grab a reference guide and do some reading.  It's obvious you
don't know the ASCII set.  (I don't claim to be an expert, but I'm pretty
confident that what I7ve written is accurate)

> Ah, indeed, the ascii standard does not prohibit any of these options, and
> they are supported by myriads and myriads and myriads of resources in the real
> world! 

But remember - it is not the ASCII standard itself that dictates what
typographical settings one can apply to the text they have created.  That is
a function of the word processor (or other editor) used to create the text
or artwork.

If it were a function of the ASCII format itself, then there would be no
issue to argue about here - every word processor would support the exact
same set of typographical settings, and every computer that uses the ASCII
standard would have all of these fonts and settings available.

> And of course, this newsgroup currently sticks with non-proportional, because
> it still provides a high portability of 80%. Compared to using html for
> example, then the portability is only 20%. One point in this discussion is

The portability of ASCII over HTML is an entirely different discussion.
Besides, since HTML is an extension of ASCII, the portability of HTML will
more than likely follow the portability of ASCII.

> So some time in the future (at least a few years from now on) there will be a
> cross-over point, and from then on html has the higher portability.

And so what if it does (which i won't because of the simple need for basic,
ordinary plain text)?

> > If it doesn't match those criteria after rendering, the image is not ASCII
> > art by definition (because it probably contains one or more codes to cause
> > some display change, making it fail the above criteria)
> 
> Please provide a quote from the ascii standard spelling out those rendering
> criteria, I don't see them.

I did provide the closest thing to a quote, which you happily ignored and
deleted (the list of ASCII control codes).  That list spells out what ASCII
is designed to do, and where it's limits were originally.

> > > Please provide a quote from the ascii standard stating the above viewing and
> > > translation requirements, I don't see them.
> > 
> > Alright.  Please provide me a quote from the ASCII standard stating that the
> > above requirements do not matter.
> 
> The burden of proof rests on you, not me. You alleged that the ascii standard
> has viewing and translation requirements that are not there.

No my friend, the burden of proof lies with YOU.  You started this argument
by insisting that any form of artwork created from an ASCII picture
qualifies as ASCII art.

You provide me a quote from any standard that has been around as long as
ASCII art has (30 or more years?).

> Well, the point was that you said that Javascript animations were not ascii
> art. However, that's exactly the topic of that newsgroup and it has
> nevertheless the words ascii art in its name. I think that the name is
> justified because ascii code is used to make those animations.

ASCII code is used to create the frames user in those animations, for sure.
But assembling them into an animation goes beyond the definition of ASCII
art, as there must be some way for the viewer program to know when one frame
ends and another begins.

> Ah, but I did not suggest that at all, on the contrary, I denoted solutions
> like that "brute force" type of solutions, and that does not sound very
> complimentary, does it?

You also suggested that at some point, HTML will become the more portable
standard right?

So by that definition, you surely must include all aspects of HTML, right?

Do those aspects of HTML not include FONT settings, color changes, and the
like?

So how is this going to become a solution, when not all computers will be
able to meet the hardware or software requirements to display in this new
standard?

> If you start asking people to fiddle with their settings, you might as well
> ask them to change to Arial, and then claim that aol pics have a portability
> of 80% or so.

I proposed using a non-porportional font.  Every single computer ever built
that has some method of text display has a non-porportional font.

Relatively few computers have the Arial font, for example.

> Whereas in reality (i.e. without making those changes) aol pics have a
> portability of only 10% or so, i.e. limited to within aol only.

So what?  If the standard used on AOL is the Arial font, so be it.  A person
receiving that picture can change thier font accordingly if they are
interested in seeing the artwork, just as the other 90% of the internet can
change thier font settings to be compatible with the majority of ASCII
artwork.

> > You forget that much of the Usenet is still 7-bit only!  Why do you think
> > the recommendation to use UUENCODE or MIME exists, for sending something
> > that contains characters outside the 32-127 range?
> 
> I did not suggest any of those bandaid solutions, I did mention that more and
> more email and newsgroup software are becoming html aware. More and more
> people want to their email and newsgroup articles to look as webpages, I guess!

Not the CLIENT software (the newsreaders and Email programs).  I'm talking
about the very guts of the internet.  The SERVER software.  I'm sure at
least half of it (if not more) is still restricted to 7-bits only.

> > The portability is 100%, period.  Name one internet-capable computer that
> > cannot display ASCII artwork using fixed-spaced font, as dictated by this
> > newsgroup.  Go ahead.  Name just ONE.
> 
> I think you try to deny that the world is now 20% proportional which limits
> the portability to 80%. 

Just answer the damn question.  Regardless of the how large the
"porportional" population is, virtually every one of them can go non-
porportional if the need arises (in other words, they can find some way to
properly view this newsgroup and any other standard, fixed-spaced, 7-bit
ASCII art.

> And I call it a decisive issue, since the ascii art community is perhaps just
> 1/1000 of 1% of the Internet. Therefore, it is this little community that has
> the burden of finding good solutions, not the 20%. 

Ok, this little community tak say, 1/1000 of 1%.  For the purposes of thos
whole argument, that means we need to throw out the other 99.999 percent of
the Internet.

Something is a bit wrong with at least one of these numbers.  (Considering
that I am not the world's best mathematician, perhaps it would help if you
provide some numerical answers, i.e. X number of people in the net, Y number
using ASCII art, Z number being porportional-ready, etc)

> And finding good solutions means to ensure that ascii pics are displayed
> correctly in the email and newsgroup software that these 20% are using anyway,
> without asking them to change settings, without asking them to change their
> Internet software, etc. 

But you are asking them to change thier software by promoting standards that
aren't fully adopted by the majority of the Internet community yet!

"This page uses (such and such code) - You must have Netscape Navigator
vx.xx or higher to see it properly"


I can't say how many times I've seen that statement in a web page.  Even the
Web is asking people to upgrade thier software.  Fortunately, that upgrade
is of course compatible with the older formats and methods, but it still
means upgrading and replacing older software.

> > Because that automated paging requires some sort of code.  It might be a
> > series of ESCAPE codes, or it might just be a special string of characters
> > in the image.
> 
> Please provide a quote from the ascii standard prohibiting the addition of
> codes, I don't see any.

I already did, by providing a standard list of control codes.  Some of them
are undefined, which means a software program might be able to make use of
them for some purpose (such as separating frames in an animation).

But by assigning some definition to a code that is not defined by whatever
standard committee originally drew up the ASCII standard, is going outside
that standard.

You wouldn't expect me to write some program that changes the meaning of
some of the standard control characters, and claim it to follow the ASCII
standard, would you?

Hell no, I've redefined a few characters, and thus have gone outside the
standard.  Sure I'm using ASCII codes for the base of it all, but I'm
changing thier meanings!

> So, there is no viewing requirement in the ascii standard.
> 
> (I do not want to deliberately exasperate you, but we do need to stick with
> the actual ascii standard, not with an assumed ascii standard.)

The assumed standard *IS* the actual standard.  There's no way to actually
prove this without contacting one or more members of the committee that drew
up the ASCII standard, except to quote from one reference manual after
another, those that have charts of the standard ASCII set.

If I obtained a chart from International Business Machines describing the
ASCII standard (sure they didn't invent it, but they sure as hell should
know what the exact standard is), would you still argue that that chart is
only the assumed standard and not the actual one?

If not, they why dismiss the chart that I posted earlier?  This chart is
more than likely the same thing (perhaps it is a sub-set of the official
ASCII code set).

> OK, my friend, that's what I wanted to get across! Words matter less than the
> message that the ascii community has those myriads of typography at their
> disposal, see further below also.

Words matter less than the message, as long as you are getting the message
across.

> > portable, adj. capable of being carried; easily conveyed.  Also, portative,
> > adj. -- portability, n.
> > 
> > In other words, portability means being able to move something (either it be
> > an object or a piece of data) from one place to another without a great deal
> > of effort.
> 
> How about zero effort?
> 
> No settings to change, no nothing at all, and still having the ascii pic
> correctly displayed, even in a 100% proportional world?

I didn't say "effortlessly conveyed", I said "easily conveyed".  Or more
correctly, Webster said it.

And having it work to where a 100% porportional world will still display
ASCIi art no matter what the actual format, typographical settings, or code
set in use are, will take a great deal of effort.

1)  Someone has to propose an official standard that supports everything
    (Sorry, HTML still isn't the best out there, I can name a number of
    popular methods/formats that HTML doesn't support).
2)  Someone has to write the ultimate program to display all of these media.
3)  Someone has to publish or distribute this program or suite of programs.
4)  The *ENTIRE* ASCII community (which I am sure is quite a lot larger than
    0.001% as you seem to believe) must aquire and install this software.

That fourth step is where you're going to lose a LOT of people - I'm sorry
but regardless of what language you use or what software development tools
you use, the resultant program simply will not be able to run on every
platform that's out there.

* What about those VAX machines?
* How about college workstations and LAN systems?
* What about the small (but significant) percentage of people who don't even
  use the same platform as those who write this monster program?
* What about the simple and undeniable fact that people are stubborn and may
  very well refuse to "upgrade" to this new super program?
* What about those users who don't have enough hardware (such as RAM and
  video display capabilities) to use this new program?

These are all important questions, many of which will probably still be at
issue when your "breakover" point is reached, regarding ASCII vs. HTML vs.
Java.

> > requires the data to be in ASCII format.  In other words, typographical
> > settings do not support ASCII.
> 
> Now I copy and paste a quote from you from further above.
> 
> > No, those myriads of typograyhave ASCII at thier disposal.
> 
> Looks like play of words to me.

Actually more of a tired person writing the wrong words at some point.

The first quote above is the more accurate and intended one.

> But again, decisive is that the ascii community has myriads of typography (and
> media) at its disposal.

Again, we do, but the point of the matter is the simple fact that not
everyone can or will be able to use these typography and media.  See my
above list of questions regarding your porposal of being able to view ASCII
in a 100% porportional world, with "zero effort" as you put it.

Why don't you sit behind the keyboard of a computer that uses a real
programming language (such as assembly), and write programs they way they
were written back in the days when 64K was enough for anyone.

That'S the only way such a "super" program will be able to make it, is by
being written in such a way that it doesn't require hundreds of megs of RAM
and HD space to do the simple job of converting and displaying various ASCII
and other art formats.

My guess is, you probably had in mind that someone would use C++ or VBASIC,
or some sort of program-creating software (i.e. a dedicated development
system), rather than an actual lower level programming language that doesn't
hold your hand through every step of the process.

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