Re: About rendering ascii code in a .txt medium

> Ilmari, you went from the specifics to the generics. Let me try to address the
> big picture first and then address the specifics.
> 
> Definition: ascii art (in my view) is using ascii code to make pictures.
> PERIOD.

Then this immediately rules out forms such as GIF and other non-ASCII
storage methods.  These don't use the ASCII code set in any way or form.

The only form that uses the ascii code set as defined by this newsgroup is a
plain 7-bit black and white text file.

HTML source files fall into this category as well (but the files often
associated with an HTML file, such as pictures or animations, do not).  But
as we've already said a million times, not many newsreaders accept the HTML
standard, and those that do may or may not display it properly.

> Comment #1: One is free to use any of the myriads of media that support ascii,
> e.g. the .txt medium and a myriad others. I myself like to render ascii code

The .txt medium (defining .txt as a standard 7-bit file containing no
control codes or formatting options)( is the only "true" ASCII format.

All others are supersets of ASCII media - HTML and Javascript both could
fall into this category.

If you want a file to be portable and displayable on every platform out
there, ASCII is the only way to do it without losing the quality of the
image.

GIF, JPG, and other such files are useless - a system with a monochrome
monitor sure can't display some 16M color image..  Low end systems like the
Spectrum or the C64 can't display GIFs at anything close to the original
quality (tho the C64 still does a good job anyways).

Try throwing a JPG file at anything less than a modern PC, and see where
it gets you.

HTML?  Sure, if you can view it.  My machine can't without logging into my
shell account (and Lynx still isn't the world's best browser, but it's
getting better).

Javascript?  HAH, again try throwing that at any computer that doesn't have
Java capabilities (read, any computer that's mnore than a few years old).

But throw an ASCII file at any platform you want, and it will be able to
display the image, as long as that machine is using a standard ASCII set (or
can programmed to display with one).  That pretty much includes virtually
every computer buildt from the old Altair to the most modern super computer.

Of course we can't really worry about the scant few computers (less than
1/100 of 1% I am sure) that can neither display ASCII, nor display a
bitmapped screen (to which an ASCII picture could be plotted to manually).

What we're concerned with here is the 99.9999% of computers that use ASCII
(or that can use it) as thier primary display/communication method.

Like another person said, portability.

> newsgroup with the name alt.ascii-art.animation

And this newsgroup is alt.ascii-art, so your point is moot.

> Comment #2: One is also free to use any typographical settings such as
> proportional and non-proportional font, e.g. Arial based pics are ascii art
> pieces with this specific typographical setting (the Arial font.)

One is NOT free to use these.

Why?  Can my computer display this Arial font?  Not while I'm online it sure
can't.

What about my mom's 486 SX/25?  Try loading that with Windows 95 (which
Arial is supplied with).  It's bad enough on her P166.

Or the Macintosh?  Last I knew, Arial wasn't a font in use on that platform
(I may be wrong).

Amiga?  don't recall seeing it there either.

The only font that is common to all platforms is the fixed-spacing
(non-porportional) default system font that is used on the system's startup
text screen (DOS, in the case of a PC).

Specifying the "default system font" doesn't take trickery - it takes a
simple act of not specifying other fonts.  ASCII art is for fixed-spaced
ASCII-oriented fonts.  Not for Arial or Helvetica.

> (Please note in the above definition and comments, that different media have
> different capabilities.)

Which is why we use 7-bit, fixed spaced, monochrome ASCII art.  This media
has enough capabilkities to make it pleasurable to draw in, yet is so
portable that you'd be hard pressed to find a system that can't display it.

> community, but because the ascii standard itself allows for vastly greater
> freedom in the choice of media and in the choice of typographical settings.

The choice of typographical settings (like fonts) is specific to the
computer platform one is running on.  Like I said, a PC running Windows 95
is about the only thing that comes standard with the Arial font (to use your
example).

Furthermore, choosing a font for a particular part of a text file means
someone has to use some form of code system (such as HTML) to specify that
font.  Uh oh...Now we can't just TYPE (or MORE or @T) the file to our
screen!  It's full of "garbage" codes!

Now we have to load up some program (like an HTML view/browser) to see the
file.

> way, and that reason is what you called portability. Let's try to guestimate
> the portability of the .txt/non-proportional combination. aol has about 10% of

About 99%.  It's as simple as that.  You'd spend longer finding one
platform that can't display ASCII than you will trying to convince us to use
other media like HTML.  Of course I know of one or two platforms that can't
use ASCII, but thier use is so limited anyways, and thier online presence is
nil, so this doesn't even matter (in the context of the use of this
newsgroup).

> Now, let's try to guestimate the portability of the .html/non-proportional
> combination. The portability here is determined by email and newsgroup
> software being html aware, say, a low 20%.

The portability is not defined just by the software - it is also determines
by the hardware capabilities of those machines that are expected to conform
to standard other than ASCII.  SOme machines just can't do it.

Am I wrong to assume a VT100 terminal system (like Wyse or Xerox) is limited
to strictly text?  Aren't systems like these (as well as Unix and related
operating systems) what defined the Internet in the first place?

I would guess, however that a good 80% of the machines out there can deal
with more than just ASCII.  Most can display graphics of some sort, but
where do we stop?  320x200 in 16 colors (the Commodore 64 for example)?
800x600 in 16 million colors (most modern PC's)?

1024x768 in 32-bit color (don't know of any examples offhand)?

It stops when a significant portion of the users can (*or can't if you
prefer) display the image or format you would propose.  HTML isn't as widely
used as ANSI X3.64 (and it certainly isn't as standardised), but can all
platforms use these standards?  No.

Most can, but not all.  All can display ASCII (at least, all platforms that
have some method to connect to the internet or to a local ASCII-only BBS).

> => the world is becoming increasingly proportional;

Sadly, yes.

> => the .txt/non-proportional combination offering no protection to ascii pics;
> => the .html/non-proportional combination do offer protection to ascii pics; 

What do you mean by "protection" [of] an ascii pic?

There's no need to "protect" a picture.  You just specify that it is an
ASCII picture, and 99.99999% of the users out there will know what to do
with it, or at least, how do display it.

At least 90% will know what kinda of characters to expect, and what screen
size to assume (80x24 usually).

Those 10% that don't know what to do with an ASCII picture probably aren't
interested in ASCII art anyways.

> => the high portability of the .txt/non-proportional combination will decline
> over time

The high portability will NEVER decline.  Why?  There's always going to be
the need for a fixed-spacing font for one purpose or another.  For example,
it's needed for lists and tables, computer source code listings, and many
other items not inherently related to this news group.  All of these are
much easier to read than if they are written/displayed in some porportional
font.

Would you want to pour through 150KB of assembly language source code that
was printed in Dwinelle font? (Old english style writing)

> => the low portability of the .html/non-proportional combination will improve
> over time

I have to agree with this, only because these types of tools are becoming
more common.  No argument there.

> On the "universal font" issue itself, I am not an expert, as I said in a

Universal font as defined by this newsgroup means the default fixed-spaced
font that your system uses on startup (or at least, that it uses for things
like text dumps, documentation files, and other unformatted text).

Universal font doesn't mean Helvetica or TImes New Roman.  It doesn't
indicate a specific typeface.  It indicates only the ASCII compatible (or
modifyable) fixed-spaced font that is used when you are not running a
graphical environment.

Try getting Arial font to be used when you're running a DOS program!  Unless
you load the font with a program designed to modify the DOS font, you're not
gonna see it.  And even if you do, you're still gonna see a fixed-spaced
screen.  That's what defines ASCII art.

> and Shockwave (the media that allow for inter-activity) therefore detect the
> computing platform that you are using, and display the captions in the system

Try detecting the platform I am running at this very moment!  It's not too
easy to find what platform you are running if you are dialed up through a
shell account (many people I know use shells, probably a good 10% of the
Internet community uses them on a daily basis, and another 10% probably have
a shell available if they need it.  By shell I mean a Unix command prompt on
your internet provider, NOT a DOS shell on your computer).

By the way, your "detect" idea would fail miserably here - I'm at my mom's
house using her PC, telnetted into my shell account on a BSDI (Unix) system,
yet this machine is running Windows 95, over a PPP dialup connection to my
mom's provider.

a pretty common scenerio, realy, for those of us who use a shell but
sometimes use a computer away from home, that doesn't necessarily use a
terminal program for modem communication (read: virtually every
Windows-based PC in existance).

> "universal font" solutions do not have to be brute force "must have identical
> font installed in all systems in the whole wide world" kind of solutions.

That's not what universal font means.  That however, does exactly fit your
idea of using some specific font such as Arial for ASCII artwork.  If a
person doesn't have that specific font installed, all they're gonna see is a
screen full of garbage.

Throw a standard ASCII picture (as defined in this newsgroup) at that person
and they'll be wuite happy, knowing that thier system, like all computers,
has a fixed-width font already installed.

The same thing goes for using any other font besides fixed-width 7-bit
ASCII.  If the computer doesn't have it loaded, it just isn't going to look
right.

Hence, the portability of porportional spacing in terms of use in ASCII art
is defined by the small percentage of computers that actually use the font
in question.

If I wanted to, I could probably draw up an ASCII picture using one of the
fonts availble in Wheels 4.0.  Not a single person on this newsgroup would
be able to view it exactly as I drew it, unless said used happens to be
running Wheels 4.0 (or any version of GEOS).

> These solutions can be smart "use adequate fonts that you already have on your
> system" kind of solutions. These solutions can include non-proportional AND
> proportional fonts.

The issue isn't what specific types of fonts one has - the issue is the fact
that a fixed-width font is the same across all platforms - every charaacter
takes the same amount of space in the character set, regardless of what that
character set it, and regardless of what platform the person is using.

When you start going into porportional fonts, you begin to rely on the user
to already have some specific font installed (whatever font the picture is
designed to be displayed in).

But, when you speak of fixed-spacing fonts, the user already has one.  It
doesn't have a name, nor a number - it is just there.  In DOS, for example,
that font is the one you are looking at throughout your DOS session.

In a Unix shell, the font is whatever your systemn uses for fixed-width
display, and that system may be a dial-up terminal, oir the very machine
running the Unix OS.

On any platform that does not default to a GUI on startup, that font is what
the user is staring at when they type thier first command.

> Now, how portable are these solutions? Well, that's what I don't know, this is
> a new area and I won't even risk a guestimate. Anyone want to risk a guestimate?

At this stage,  your estimate has to be based on the following criteria:

* How many people use the OS you are using?
* How many people have the specific font you are drawing your artwork in?
* How many people have that font set as thier default?
* How many people want to constantly switch fonts around when viewing
  different user' artwork?
* What encoding or markup scheme do you propose to use to specify fonts
  within an ASCII drawing?
* How many people can use this sceheme (i.e. how many have viewers)?
* How many people have the necessary hardware and/or software to support
  some new encoding method?

(I mention the use of " markup scheme " for the purpose that HTMl is not
allowed in this newsgroup, it's been ruled out.  So now, you've got to come
up with a new method.  HTML is *NOT* an option here, PERIOD.)


> style sheets and other typographical tools for general usage. I do know that
> the web design community needs them for general usage and with maximum
> portability in mind, i.e. to reach the largest possible audience.

Hrm... Ok if you think you're so smart...

Go grab a copy of Lynx (or turn off all graphics and movies in your current
browser so that it's text only).

Now, go view http://www.jensenaudio.com

This site is one I needed to look through yesterday, trying to find
specifications on a car audio amplifier.  Know what I found?  Mounds and
mounds of [LINK], [IMAGE] and, [INLINE].

Very little text.

This is reaching the widest possible audience????  Seems to me that a
company like Jensen would be concerned about this, yet the tools you speak
of are most likely what is responsible for this site (among the many
thousands of similar examples) being almost totally graphical.

> In any case, the ascii community really only needs a rather small subset of
> those tools and can easily piggyback on the general development trends and use
> those tools as they become widely available.

The ASCII community only needs three things:

A program to edit ASCII pictures (*note pad does nice for some, Pico
and Pine work well for me)

A program to display the ASCII pictures on screen (your newsreader and Email
programs of course)

A fixed spaced font (every computer ever built has one, even if it has to be
rendered on a printer rather than a CRT display)

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