In addition to BBS, online text file, and earlier computer ASCII art, there was also IRC, where ASCII art would typically fit within a few lines. Sometimes the

In addition to BBS, online text file, and earlier computer ASCII art, there was also IRC, where ASCII art would typically fit within a few lines. Sometimes there were add-on scripts for IRC clients to generate these. I got carried away with an IRC client I wrote, and added a bunch of ASCII art as standard commands. For example, one command would send ASCII art of an airplane towing a banner with the user-provided message.