6 ms·

Star Wars Asciimation (2015)

48 points by delvin0 6y ago

sidpatil 6y ago
Also available via Telnet at towel.blinkenlights.nl.
- jolmg 6y ago
  Pity ^S/^Q don't work for pause/play. ^C/^Z also don't seem to work for quitting. I wonder what's preventing these keybindings from working. Very cool regardless.
  - Joker_vD 6y ago
    The fact that Telnet is actually a protocol, and a weird one (mostly because it's ancient and actually predates UNIX). I believe the reason is that those keypresses are not interpreted by your terminal but instead sent over to the other side to be interpreted there. Obviously, they don't do anything there. With "nc towel.blinkenlights.nl 23", on the other hand, they would work.
- dr_orpheus 6y ago
  Ah, reminds me of messing with my friends by piping the output to a write message on their terminals. Super annoying because it just scrolls through the terminal frame by frame.
- BuildTheRobots 6y ago
  FYI, if you connect via IPv6 then you can watch in colour :)
gswdh 6y ago
It boggles my mind why someone would spend so much time on something so pointless... If it makes you happy I guess!
jiveturkey 6y ago
needs a 1995 tag ... or however old it is
- jolmg 6y ago
  Apparently 1999, but it was a Java applet at the time.
  - jacobush 6y ago
    The java applet was just a telnet client in Java, IIRC. The original was a telnet server.
    - toast0 6y ago
      IIRC, that java was self-contained. I think the applet zip file contained the textfile, which I used to make my own local viewer. FWIW, the text file has changed over time (which I guess is fair, it's not like Lucas hasn't changed his versions over time)
    - jolmg 6y ago
      > The original was a telnet server. The telnet server says: > Original Work : Simon Jansen ( http://www.asciimation.co.nz/ http://www.asciimation.co.nz/ ) > Telnetification : Sten Spans ( sten@blinkenlights.nl ) > Terminal Tricks : Mike Edwards (pf-asciimation@mirkwood.net)
elvis70 6y ago
I couldn't find the original file. It was possible to play the movie with Notepad, by letting your finger press the "Page Down" or "Down" key.
KingFelix 6y ago
Super cool, his/her other projects are pretty rad too
yurishimo 6y ago
This is way older than 2015. I remember passing around a .bat file with it embedded in High School. 2009 era. At that point it was already old.
- darrelld 6y ago
  Older still...I remember there was a telnet server circa 2002 that you could log into and watch it all.
  - jacobush 6y ago
    In the 90s.
dvdkhlng 6y ago
In Firefox (v82) the text-field does not seem to render in a strictly non-proportional font. Thus everything is garbled. Unfortunately w3m text-mode browser isn't capable to display the page... [EDIT] The following steps fix playback in Firefox for me: - I press F12 to open the web-developer tools, - select the "Console" Tab - at the prompt at the bottom (marked by ">>") enter: document.querySelector("pre#screen").setAttribute("style", "font-family:Monospace;") - press Return. Renders correctly now.
- tom_mellior 6y ago
  For me (Firefox 82 on Ubuntu) everything works fine out of the box. #screen has "font-family: Courier New,Fixed;" set.
  - dvdkhlng 6y ago
    I'm running Firefox, installed from upstream, running on Devuan Beowulf. With the default "Courier New,Fixed" font family set it's just not working.
    - BerislavLopac 6y ago
      If I'm not mistaken, Courier New is one of Microsoft fonts; if you're on Linux there is an installer available for various distros; on apt-based systems it's: sudo apt install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
mnw21cam 6y ago
> Asciimation may take some time to load... It's been sitting there like that for 10 minutes or so. How long does this thing take?
- tom_mellior 6y ago
  As long as it takes you to activate JavaScript, I believe.
  - mnw21cam 6y ago
    So, NaN time then...
snarfy 6y ago
There should be a lucas 'digitally enhanced' version, with hi res svg overlays floating around.
m-i-l 6y ago
You can watch any film in ASCII with VLC and a video file[0]: vlc videofile.mp4 -V aa [0] https://wiki.videolan.org/Video_Output/ https://wiki.videolan.org/Video_Output/
- estebank 6y ago
  I hope it is clear that this is not what the original link is about. VLC can output ascii art like what aalib and libcaca can produce (namely try to simulate images using terminal output), while the submission is an animated scene by scene recreation of A New Hope using ascii art.
shmerl 6y ago
I remember seeing it at: telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
- SaltyBackendGuy 6y ago
  This was getting passed around at work. I remember my co-worker saying. "Looks trustworthy, what could go wrong?". I laughed, and then was amazed at the result.
dzdt 6y ago
At one point this animation was the oldest surviving file on bittorrent. I remember a Hacker News item pointing that out a few years ago. Edit. Nope I remember wrong. It was an ASCII rendition of The Matrix that was the oldest on bittorrent. https://torrentfreak.com/oldest-torrent-is-still-being-shared-after-4419-days-160124/ https://torrentfreak.com/oldest-torrent-is-still-being-share... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10962253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10962253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18102578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18102578
GauntletWizard 6y ago
Other good examples of this style: http://artscene.textfiles.com/vt100/ http://artscene.textfiles.com/vt100/ and http://www.textfiles.com/art/ http://www.textfiles.com/art/ To play the former, you’ll want to limit the rate that your terminal displays the text. I use `pv`, or “Pipe Viewer”, as such: clear && curl -s http://artscene.textfiles.com/vt100/bambi.vt | pv -q -L 2600

48 points by delvin0 6y ago

sidpatil 6y ago

Also available via Telnet at towel.blinkenlights.nl.

jolmg 6y ago
Pity ^S/^Q don't work for pause/play. ^C/^Z also don't seem to work for quitting. I wonder what's preventing these keybindings from working. Very cool regardless.
- Joker_vD 6y ago
  The fact that Telnet is actually a protocol, and a weird one (mostly because it's ancient and actually predates UNIX). I believe the reason is that those keypresses are not interpreted by your terminal but instead sent over to the other side to be interpreted there. Obviously, they don't do anything there. With "nc towel.blinkenlights.nl 23", on the other hand, they would work.
dr_orpheus 6y ago
Ah, reminds me of messing with my friends by piping the output to a write message on their terminals. Super annoying because it just scrolls through the terminal frame by frame.
BuildTheRobots 6y ago
FYI, if you connect via IPv6 then you can watch in colour :)

gswdh 6y ago

It boggles my mind why someone would spend so much time on something so pointless... If it makes you happy I guess!

jiveturkey 6y ago

needs a 1995 tag ... or however old it is

jolmg 6y ago
Apparently 1999, but it was a Java applet at the time.
- jacobush 6y ago
  The java applet was just a telnet client in Java, IIRC. The original was a telnet server.
  - toast0 6y ago
    IIRC, that java was self-contained. I think the applet zip file contained the textfile, which I used to make my own local viewer. FWIW, the text file has changed over time (which I guess is fair, it's not like Lucas hasn't changed his versions over time)
  - jolmg 6y ago
    > The original was a telnet server. The telnet server says: > Original Work : Simon Jansen ( http://www.asciimation.co.nz/ http://www.asciimation.co.nz/ ) > Telnetification : Sten Spans ( sten@blinkenlights.nl ) > Terminal Tricks : Mike Edwards (pf-asciimation@mirkwood.net)

elvis70 6y ago

I couldn't find the original file. It was possible to play the movie with Notepad, by letting your finger press the "Page Down" or "Down" key.

KingFelix 6y ago

Super cool, his/her other projects are pretty rad too

yurishimo 6y ago

This is way older than 2015. I remember passing around a .bat file with it embedded in High School. 2009 era. At that point it was already old.

darrelld 6y ago
Older still...I remember there was a telnet server circa 2002 that you could log into and watch it all.
- jacobush 6y ago
  In the 90s.

dvdkhlng 6y ago

In Firefox (v82) the text-field does not seem to render in a strictly non-proportional font. Thus everything is garbled. Unfortunately w3m text-mode browser isn't capable to display the page... [EDIT] The following steps fix playback in Firefox for me: - I press F12 to open the web-developer tools, - select the "Console" Tab - at the prompt at the bottom (marked by ">>") enter: document.querySelector("pre#screen").setAttribute("style", "font-family:Monospace;") - press Return. Renders correctly now.

tom_mellior 6y ago
For me (Firefox 82 on Ubuntu) everything works fine out of the box. #screen has "font-family: Courier New,Fixed;" set.
- dvdkhlng 6y ago
  I'm running Firefox, installed from upstream, running on Devuan Beowulf. With the default "Courier New,Fixed" font family set it's just not working.
  - BerislavLopac 6y ago
    If I'm not mistaken, Courier New is one of Microsoft fonts; if you're on Linux there is an installer available for various distros; on apt-based systems it's: sudo apt install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

mnw21cam 6y ago

> Asciimation may take some time to load... It's been sitting there like that for 10 minutes or so. How long does this thing take?

tom_mellior 6y ago
As long as it takes you to activate JavaScript, I believe.
- mnw21cam 6y ago
  So, NaN time then...

snarfy 6y ago

There should be a lucas 'digitally enhanced' version, with hi res svg overlays floating around.

m-i-l 6y ago

You can watch any film in ASCII with VLC and a video file[0]: vlc videofile.mp4 -V aa [0] https://wiki.videolan.org/Video_Output/ https://wiki.videolan.org/Video_Output/

estebank 6y ago
I hope it is clear that this is not what the original link is about. VLC can output ascii art like what aalib and libcaca can produce (namely try to simulate images using terminal output), while the submission is an animated scene by scene recreation of A New Hope using ascii art.

shmerl 6y ago

I remember seeing it at: telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

SaltyBackendGuy 6y ago
This was getting passed around at work. I remember my co-worker saying. "Looks trustworthy, what could go wrong?". I laughed, and then was amazed at the result.

dzdt 6y ago

At one point this animation was the oldest surviving file on bittorrent. I remember a Hacker News item pointing that out a few years ago. Edit. Nope I remember wrong. It was an ASCII rendition of The Matrix that was the oldest on bittorrent. https://torrentfreak.com/oldest-torrent-is-still-being-shared-after-4419-days-160124/ https://torrentfreak.com/oldest-torrent-is-still-being-share... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10962253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10962253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18102578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18102578

GauntletWizard 6y ago

Other good examples of this style: http://artscene.textfiles.com/vt100/ http://artscene.textfiles.com/vt100/ and http://www.textfiles.com/art/ http://www.textfiles.com/art/ To play the former, you’ll want to limit the rate that your terminal displays the text. I use `pv`, or “Pipe Viewer”, as such: clear && curl -s http://artscene.textfiles.com/vt100/bambi.vt | pv -q -L 2600