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X11 in ASCII

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the why-the-hell-not dept.

ChristTrekker submitted a story that we probably have run once upon a time, but hey, it's a holiday weekend, and who doesn't enjoy reading about a X11 in ASCII graphics? Complete with screenshots and code for you do it yourselfers. I like the enlightenment screenshots. Painful.

5 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Impaired by dimmu · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It might look dreddful, but I see some applications for visually impaired people. Bigger letters are more visible to people that can see very difficult.

    Anyone has an idea about how this ASCII X-server would work for blind people using a braille term ?

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    -- Cliff Albert
  2. This is why micro kernel and os is cool by Felinoid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The folowing is just as true of Solarus (closed micro kernel) as is of Linux (open monolythic)

    This sort of thing is why you need to let end users edit/replace as much code as they can.
    You can do useless but cool things like this while not being bloated with useless and unwanted 'features'
    Sealed systems that don't let end users change things around end up having every feature possable in the system and still lack features users want.
    But when you let them change things (eather by open source or micro kernel) then you get all kinds of funky cool features.
    Even ones that don't really have any practical application. Oh wait did someone say this will work for brail terminals? Well guess this IS practical after all.
    But we'd never know that if it wasn't for the ability to replace the X11 system with this funky hack.

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    I don't actually exist.
  3. PC Anywhere and Windows 3.0... by PinchDuck · · Score: 3, Interesting

    could do the same thing without programming. PC Anywhere running on a DOS 3.3 box actually tried to render the Windows screen in ascii. It was freaky.

    Thank god that technology hasn't been lost!

  4. Re:slashdotted? by catmaker · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why use graphic files to display text in the first place?

    Are you aware of how aalib works? It uses as many characters as it can from the available character set (including the top 128). Go look at the screenshots (if you can get to them). Notice how it'll use IBM box graphics, for example? If there's a way to do that in HTML, it's beyond me, sadly.

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    status is failure. status is failure
  5. Screw that, I'll make my own shots. by SmittyTheBold · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Thank goodness I have that G3 around and asciiMac is Mac OS 9.2 compatible ;)

    Small section
    Full screen

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