What is ASCII? Acronym for the American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Pronounced ask-ee, ASCII is a code for representing English characters as numbers, with each letter assigned a number from 0 to 127. For example, the ASCII code for uppercase M is 77. Most computers use ASCII codes to represent text, which makes it possible to transfer data from one computer to another. What is ASCII Art? Essentially, ASCII artwork denotes pictures which are created without using graphics. They are "non-graphical graphics". Its palette is limited to the symbols and characters that you have available to you on your computer keyboard. Specifically those 95 which are listed on the above ASCII chart. International symbols, such as the UK pound sterling sign, are not considered to be ASCII characters because they are not universal on all systems. In order to view ASCII art correctly, you must display it in a font that has uniform character width. This is also known as a "fixed-pitch font." Your browser should have some provision for setting a fixed font. Fixed-pitch fonts include "Courier", "FixedSys", or "Monaco". This is important because viewing ASCII art in proportional spacing will cause it to look skewed. ASCII Art is not made in proportional fonts because the letter widths vary from font to font. Even if you know what font the pictures were created in, it still tends to look skewed. ASCII art is universal-- but only if it is created and viewed in a fixed-pitch font and without any non-ASCII characters. Click on an item to get more information on it (or if you want to buy it, of course).
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