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The Art of Warez Documents the Lost ANSI Art Scene (2019)
- rasengan 6y agoASCII art is what it was called. Edit: As aptly mentioned ANSI art is the right word. This was the colorful BBS days as opposed to FXP courier days they were covering.
- dfsegoat 6y agoI always thought it was ASCII art, but apparently there are diffs: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_art - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII_art
- mr-wendel 6y agoNot only differences in character sets, but particularly in the communities. Thats what makes the documentary so compelling! I highly recommend browsing through some ANSI art archives (some of which is very recent too). Two favorites of mine: - https://16colo.rs/ https://16colo.rs/ - https://artpacks.org/ https://artpacks.org/
- doublerabbit 6y agoAnother cool site: https://wab.com https://wab.com
- dleslie 6y agoAnd https://www.pouet.net/ https://www.pouet.net/
- fl0wenol 6y agohttps://ice.org https://ice.org for ansi packs and other old skool art packs.
- apetresc 6y agoANSI art and ASCII art are two distinct things. This is definitely referring to ANSI art.
- api 6y agoThis thread makes me feel old in a good way. Who remembers TheDraw?
- dleslie 6y agoPabloDraw is a modern alternative worth checking out.
- loloquwowndueo 6y agoI DO!! An artist friend was a wizard with that thing, awesome watching him work. I could never produce anything beyond shapeless confetti.
- pridkett 6y agoI wasted so much time trying to make non-terrible animated ANSI art with TheDraw. I remember the first time I realized I could run it in 80x43 mode instead of 80x25 mode and my mind was completely blown. I also remember what a pain it was if you wanted to change color schemes. Especially on an animated piece. I had a BBS animated main screen that originally was red and yellow and at some point I decided bright blue and green would be more “3733+” and I needed to step through it character by character.
- core-questions 6y agoI used to use ACiD Draw for this kind of thing. The blinking parts were my favourite, you could almost make crude animation with it.
- marshal_law 6y agoI do. Brings back some memories - as someone whose handle appeared in the video a few times. :)
- glonq 6y ago
- zozbot234 6y agoWhy the focus on warez? There was a lot of ASCII/ANSI art making that had nothing to do with illegally ripping off copywritten software. For example, any BBS sysop would've had an opportunity to show off their custom ANSI art as part of the BBS itself.
- dleslie 6y agoThere was a brief period after the precipitous crash of BBS popularity where exposure to ANSI art was mostly through warez intros and crackscene tools. Anyone who was a teen in the 90s is more likely to reminisce about the warez scene than the BBS scene, which was popular when they were rather young kids.
- kickscondor 6y agoI think it's also a lot more interesting that cracking teams usually had an artist.
- dleslie 6y agoANSI artists and MOD trackers! Such an incredible wealth of cultural artifacts from that scene.
- wyldfire 6y agoTrue. But having seen both I think the ones who were the best at it tended to team up with the warez distributors.
- progmetaldev 6y agoI think it has more to do with the type of audiences. I was lucky enough to have access to my dad's Atari 8-bit computer, as well as a 286, both that allowed me to connect to BBS systems. I was exposed to the ASCII/ANSI art early on. Most of my friends did not have PCs until the late 90's or early 2000's. Their experience with the art was through .NFO files in warez. I imagine how old you are, and when your first experience with computing, dictates your connection to the art scene.
- dleslie 6y agoThe BBS scene, and its art scene, is still active. Barely. Browsing /r/bbs is a great way to find information.
- EamonnMR 6y agoI found it hard to get into without knowing all of the key commands to navigate BBSs.
- mlacks 6y agoNot glorifying crime, but one of the best parts of the video game warez scene (for me) was the artwork that accompanied each release. On later systems like the Nintendo Gamebot Advance you would often find a little demoscene preview before the game booted up. Amazing what you can code in just a few kilobytes of space
- croon 6y agoI grew up with a Spectrum and later Atari (st 1040, not the 2600), and the accompanying copy parties and sneakernets. (Hoping the statute of limitations have past.) It was to the point where I thought that the demo music and loading/menu screens before games were official, and I'm nostalgic for that part of it as much as the games themselves.
- sneak 6y agoCopying files isn't a crime, regardless of what the law says.
- coldtea 6y agoCopying files in general, no. Someone having written a game, spending tons of money over 1 year or more, paying a team, graphic artists, sound guy, etc, hoping to sell it, and then taking that game against their wishes and giving it for free with them not seeing a penny sounds like one. And the "those downloading the pirate version weren't going to buy anyway"-excuse is bogus. Some weren't, some would - if there wasn't a pirate version. When you pirate you don't only cater to the poor and the perpetual cheapskates who'd never buy, but also to people who would.
- deepakhj 6y agoThe only people that got raided were ones that were selling software for profit. I think trading warez was fun and competitive at the top.
- LeoPanthera 6y agoThe GBA warez intros were the specific inspiration for the "no-intro" rom collection, which originally set out to create a complete collection that had not been modified in any way.
- sunjester 6y agoDon't we see this every year
- runawaybottle 6y agoDo you guys pronounce it Juarez, or Wares?
- replwoacause 6y agoJuarez
- kickscondor 6y agoThere was also Wai-rez. You really have the pick the pronunciation for the occasion with this one.
- wyldfire 6y agoI have met folks who pronounce it like "Juarez" but where I grew up it was "wares." IMO the latter makes much more sense because it's likely derived from "software(s)". But so much discussion about warez was nonverbal, it doesn't surprise me that the word took on different pronunciations.
- core-questions 6y agoWe emphasized the zed out here - so like 'wares', except the z has that vocal fry buzz to it, usually extended out a beat to make it clear.
- ishjoh 6y agoI had never considered software(s) as a potential root, and had always assumed it was related to the idiom or a vendor selling their wares, just goes to show how tricky English can be: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peddle%20one%27s%20wares https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peddle%20one%27s%...
- JdeBP 6y ago"software", "cookware", "earthenware", "hardware", "tinware", "glassware", et al. are all various kinds of ware, notice. Tangible ones can often be found housed in warehouses. * https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ware#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ware#English
- breakfastduck 6y agoLets not forget the garish anime graphics and loud chiptune music that was the look of any reliable keygen.
- erk__ 6y agoThere is a great site with a large collection of the music from keygens. http://www.keygenmusic.net/ http://www.keygenmusic.net/
- mr-wendel 6y agoOh, very cool! If you're into this stuff I recommend the artist "Master Boot Record". In particular, they have "Keygen Church" side-project thats epically awesome. Go open your text editor (vim, right?) to do some coding/etc and listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJtVDEx2HSk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJtVDEx2HSk. No matter what you do, ~20 minutes later it'll have been epic.
- croon 6y agoI'm not particularly fond of Swedish House Mafia, but given their popularity another fun fact is that Axwell (one third of it) used to go under the name Quazar / Sanxion, and I think most people in the very thin slice of people who have listened to chiptune music have probably heard this gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LiTxEUxSHU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LiTxEUxSHU On recommendations I like Dubmood.
- breakfastduck 6y agoWhat a great little fact. I have definitely heard that tune somewhere before. Likely a keygen of some sort!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dleslie 6y agoThis is probably the album most people would recognize tracks from: https://dubmood.bandcamp.com/album/crackscene-music-best-of-2004-2007-data002 https://dubmood.bandcamp.com/album/crackscene-music-best-of-... IE, how many keygens had this track? https://dubmood.bandcamp.com/track/keygen-13-razor-1911-version https://dubmood.bandcamp.com/track/keygen-13-razor-1911-vers... I particularly enjoy this cover: https://dubmood.bandcamp.com/track/command-conqueror-3-keygen-a-message-to-you-mowgli https://dubmood.bandcamp.com/track/command-conqueror-3-keyge... This is epically danceable, and simultaneously feels like a Mega Man or Sh'Mup track: https://dubmood.bandcamp.com/track/supersquatting https://dubmood.bandcamp.com/track/supersquatting
- jcpham2 6y agoI miss .nfo files
- unstatusthequo 6y agoThey still exist.
- bri3d 6y agoI'm not really impressed with the NFOs I see these days. As far as I can tell the "scene" (FXP couriers, tiers of groups, topsites, etc.) is pretty dried up and there are just a few "groups" releasing torrents these days, so the diversity of NFO art as well as the competitive aspect seems significantly less fun than it used to. Or I've gotten older and more out of touch. Hard to tell which sometimes :)
- birdyrooster 6y agoRelease groups still are creating ascii art in their nfo files even today
- jcpham2 6y agoYes but eventually the cost of the crime outweighs the time and you lose touch
- mrits 6y agoI miss running an empire full of adults as a 12 year old...FTP server scripting and custom eggdrop bots were what got me into coding
- dopeboy 6y agoThe feeling of power in initiating FXP transfers as a teenager. I was so proud of my courier title.
- Datagenerator 6y ago
- j_walter 6y agoI miss dial up BBS...
- Black101 6y agoI don't miss my 2400bps modem...
- monokai_nl 6y agoI took inspiration from ANSI art for my own domain. It also uses a scroll effect based on the 4 block characters: https://monokai.nl https://monokai.nl
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- codazoda 6y agoThis is actually really cool. I've thought about building a BBS like service on the modern web but still having the old feeling. Your design might work for something like this. It has a bit of the feel, at least. I love the fading as you scroll, it gives that nostalgic feeling of a modem drawing the screen. Anyway, nice work, I enjoyed scrolling through it.
- sneak 6y agoI've been thinking about an ssh-based bbs, written in a modern language, explicitly not accessible on the web. If something like that sounds interesting to you, hmu to collaborate.
- mattt416 6y agoI actually installed Mystic BBS (http://www.mysticbbs.com/ http://www.mysticbbs.com/) just this week and had a telnet/ssh board up in minutes. Thought it’d be fun to work on a system like this in a modern language, but figured it’d likely be a colossal waste of time.
- alexmingoia 6y agoThat pixel scroll effect is so cool! How is it done?
- monokai_nl 6y agoSo just this once I'm going to direct you to Reddit. They've tried to dissect it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/b0wcrm/how_is_this_website_performing_this_scroll_effect/ https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/b0wcrm/how_is_this_...
- EMM_386 6y agoMy SaltAir dual-node PCBoard BBS had custom artwork by Jed from ACID. Those were the days.
- christianvozar 6y agoDo you still have that art?
- EMM_386 6y agoI wish. That was long before the days of easy cloud backups and sadly it got lost somewhere along the way.
- sk5t 6y agoSpeaking as a once-teenaged iCE member—-Jed was the best.
- RobGR 6y agoReminds me of this presentation by Jason Scott, examples around the 24:00 min mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCAL_YgYiP0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCAL_YgYiP0 Jason has a similar ( maybe the same ? ) Defcon talk, in which the goons apparently mis-schedule something and he starts in, is told someone else is going to present, and just power-speeds through the whole presentation in 3 minutes while the other presenter gets ready. I can't find that video though.
- homarp 6y agosee also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20596454 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20596454
- thegeekbin 6y agoI miss the ascii art... it's rare to see these days.
- rolph 6y agoi know its a faux pas here but have a look here for some ~ instant gratification nostalgic fun : https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=image%20to%20ascii https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=image%20to%20ascii [DDG search] and the other way is a bit risky but look at bittorrent listings and DL ascii art there, [its in the .NFOs of course] it still exists, just be wary when using such sources on a system that will execute .txt as if its .exe as there are sometimes code embedded in the ASCII. and there is this : https://github.com/LazoCoder/Image-To-ASCII https://github.com/LazoCoder/Image-To-ASCII or this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_raWlX7tZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_raWlX7tZY [python H2 image to ascii]
- christianvozar 6y agoGo check out https://16colo.rs https://16colo.rs and enjoy! Lots of art still being put out.
- msk-lywenn 6y agoLost? Evoke has an ANSI/ASCII competition every year. https://www.novoque.eu/competitions/graphics/ https://www.novoque.eu/competitions/graphics/ https://demozoo.org/graphics/282413/ https://demozoo.org/graphics/282413/ https://demozoo.org/graphics/282415/ https://demozoo.org/graphics/282415/ I also had some fun with the EULA of our game https://store.steampowered.com//eula/610410_eula_0 https://store.steampowered.com//eula/610410_eula_0
- fl0wenol 6y agoPlease check iCE Advertisements (https://ice.org https://ice.org) for all your ANSI pack needs outside of compos.
- dragonshed 6y agoI used to use Figlet and TheDraw, waaay back when, to draw things like this (though nowhere near as good as these examples). Fun times. These days it looks like PabloDraw might be the way to go. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIGlet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIGlet [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheDraw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheDraw [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PabloDraw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PabloDraw
- sudasana 6y agoREXPaint (https://www.gridsagegames.com/rexpaint/ https://www.gridsagegames.com/rexpaint/) is really excellent for this sort of thing.
- jzawodn 6y agoOh, man... The Draw brings back memories. Thanks for the pointer to PabloDraw.
- rabidrat 6y agoI'm actively working on a VisiData-based drawing tool that a) uses unicode (including full-width chars), b) supports 256-colors, c) supports animations, and d) works in the terminal. It's called DarkDraw and is already making it easier to create modern terminal art.
- ggeorgovassilis 6y agoI programmed a web-based ASCII animator a while ago: https://animasci.com/ https://animasci.com/
- Sil_E_Goose 6y agoFor anyone interested in learning more about the ANSI art scene and BBS history in general, I highly recommend Jason Scott's documentary series "BBS The Documentary"[0]. There is a part specifically dedicated to the art scene [1]. Watching this series in my early teen years really opened my eyes to the fact that the internet subcultures I was then a part of had been around for much longer than I was aware. [0]http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/ http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/ [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t74FlFL_M0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t74FlFL_M0
- api 6y agoIt really does go back to the 1960s phone phreak subculture as well as technophile aspects of the hippie subculture. Look for old issues of the Whole Earth Catalog. A lot of those people from the 1990s grew up and created the tech startup scene, which sometimes reminds me of hacker/warez groups in some ways.
- EamonnMR 6y agoIf you're into this sort of thing, you'll like Exploding the Phone[1] which details the history of phone phreaking and Counterculture to Cyberculture [2] which is a critical look at how the Whole Earth Catalog circle interacted with the tech scene. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Exploding-Phone-Phil-Lapsley/dp/0802122280 https://www.amazon.com/Exploding-Phone-Phil-Lapsley/dp/08021... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Counterculture-Cyberculture-Stewart-Network-Utopianism/dp/0226817423 https://www.amazon.com/Counterculture-Cyberculture-Stewart-N...
- myth_drannon 6y agoThere is also a new doc "Back to the BBS"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0OwGSX2IiQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0OwGSX2IiQ More about the modern BBS scene
- gxqoz 6y agoAm I the only one who grew up pronouncing it "where-ez"?
- tomc1985 6y agoNope! Me too!
- tanseydavid 6y agoI have had a really ignorant question for a long time and will go ahead and ask it now: is it pronounced likes "wears" or like "Juarez"?
- whereis 6y agoWhere is or Whereas
- throwaheyy 6y agoLike “wears”, it’s literally a corruption of “wares”.
- EamonnMR 6y agoWares. I swear they say it in the BBS Documentary: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7nj3G6Jpv2G6Gp6NvN1kUtQuW8QshBWE https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7nj3G6Jpv2G6Gp6NvN1kUtQu...
- sneak 6y agoHowever you like, both are permitted. My warez project is codenamed Project Franklin, for example.
- qbasic_forever 6y agoThis was a point of debate and arguments on BBS message boards back in the day. I don't think there was ever a definitive pronunciation.
- dbsmith83 6y agoLike wears, as in short for 'softwares'
- sethammons 6y agoholy moly, I think I've said it wrong my whole life now! I always said "war - ez" like "Juarez." "Wares" like "where's" with a Z sound makes a lot of sense. That's funny. Related, a former colleague was mostly self taught and pronounces "attribute" as "a tribute." The first time I noticed this "mispronouncing in your head" was encountering the name Phobe in a book in high school. I read it as "foh-b" (long oh), not "fee-bee". I had no clue who this "fee-bee" person was that the teacher was talking about! haha
- jart 6y agoI make ANSI art for my source code! https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jart/cosmopolitan/master/ape/ape.S https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jart/cosmopolitan/master/a... Also shout out to http://blocktronics.org/ http://blocktronics.org/
- christianvozar 6y agoAlpha King here. Thanks for the shoutout from all us in B7. Be sure to check out our latest pack, a tribute to FiRE. https://16colo.rs/pack/fire-34/ https://16colo.rs/pack/fire-34/
- cromwellian 6y agoC64 also had a rich scene based on PETSCII art and animation.
- Torwald 6y agoBest scene ever. I was on Amiga, but trying to objective here, c64 had the best demoscene and altogether best scene.
- mmaunder 6y agoRenegade BBS always did a great job of incorporating ascii art into the UX. Signing on to a Renegade BBS always had this great feeling as the art scrolled. https://www.google.com/search?q=renegade+bbs&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS882US882&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjmnNHx77zvAhUWQ80KHW1PD-0Q_AUoAnoECAgQBA&biw=1754&bih=804 https://www.google.com/search?q=renegade+bbs&rlz=1C5CHFA_enU...
- fsckboy 6y agoThere is an old piece of animated ansi art I'd like to see again, it was a file on DECUS tapes containing a long ANSI escape sequence. The file was JACK.OFF and yes, that's pretty self explanatory. it's more "stick figure" quality than anything elaborate, but it was funny. it needs to be played back at I think 1200 baud.
- woodrowbarlow 6y agocurl https://theden.sh/lady
- bredren 6y agoI was way into the BBS scene in Portland, Oregon in the early 90s. Played LORD, the risk game, a little Trade Wars etc. But also uses the messaging services and met my first person from “online” in real life. My mom drove me to an outlet mall in Troutdale to meet him. I also did some ASCII art for smaller boards. I haven’t finished this documentary, but for every one of these nicely finished art pieces there were many, many jenky simple intros. My stuff was small animations, moving stick people around big simpler logos that kind of thing. I remember spending days animating a small Spider Man character. It was also where I spent my first money online, where I sent cash in the mail to a BBS based out of Lake Oswego. I think to get more time with them. They were one of the fewer with a trunk, so there were multiple users online at once, and less chance of a busy signal. It was really cool back then, there was a small weekly paper publication with a page in the classifieds dedicated to BBSs. That was how I found out about new ones.
- davestephens 6y agoFor anyone thinking they want to start a BBS, or just noodle with some software for nostalgia's sake - this is written in node.js and a lot of fun: https://github.com/NuSkooler/enigma-bbs https://github.com/NuSkooler/enigma-bbs
- xtracto 6y agoAnybody remembers Phrozen Crew and this "DaVinci" ASCII/ANSI art? It was just amazing https://geekdrop.com/content/phrozen-crew-member-logos-by-davinci https://geekdrop.com/content/phrozen-crew-member-logos-by-da...
- hammerton 6y agoWhat I miss the most about warez is the music. I've ran some keygens for like hours just to hear those chiptunes.
- acd 6y agoPlease checkout Acid productions http://www.acid.org/archives/archives.html http://www.acid.org/archives/archives.html and Ice https://www.ice.org/pack/ https://www.ice.org/pack/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_art http://artscene.textfiles.com/ansi/bbs/ http://artscene.textfiles.com/ansi/bbs/ This site has a good online view of ANSI art https://cleaner.ansilove.org/artwork.html https://cleaner.ansilove.org/artwork.html
- benlivengood 6y agoI remember being 10 or 11 and reporting to the sysop of a local BBS that not all the downloadable files were shareware. I think I was doing warez wrong.
- fooblat 6y agoI was a teenager in the late 80s and BBSing was a huge part of my life for over a decade. At one point I had met most of my friends through local BBSes. I have intense nostalgia for those times, running telix[0] (and later qmodem[1]) long into the night searching for warez and filez, emailing and chatting with friends, and of course the glorious ansi art! 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telix 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qmodem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qmodem
- booleanbetrayal 6y agoThis is going to be a controversial statement, but in their prime, CiA had the best artists.
- pugworthy 6y agoYou know, those images would look a lot better if rendered at the original resolution - either 640x480, or even 320x240.
- dapack 6y agoIt's kind of funny that this popped up because I just finished watching BBS: The Documentary and there is a whole segment about ANSI art. If you want to see it its on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQrBbm5ZMlo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQrBbm5ZMlo And the entire BBS Documentary series is in a playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7nj3G6Jpv2G6Gp6NvN1kUtQuW8QshBWE https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7nj3G6Jpv2G6Gp6NvN1k...
- ornornor 6y agoWait, all these NFOs illustrations had color?? They never showed in color for me :(