Updated: 14-05-99

REVOLTING TEMPORARY MEDIA LAB

ASCIIart Hack-In at "Revolting"


=============================================
==                                         ==
==             Saturday, 8pm               ==
==                                         ==
== CHEAP TECH AND FREE FOOD FOR THE MASSES ==
==                                         ==
==     DADI building, Grosvenor Street     ==
==                                         ==
=============================================

Redundant Technology Initiative will be present at Revolting
from Saturday til Monday

=============================================

Redundant Technology Initiative
ASCIIart Hack-In at "Revolting"

ASCIIart - the original digital image format. Byte-efficient and 100%
compatible, e-mailers posted images made from text characters way back in
the Sixties, long before GIFs and JPEGs hit the networks. Viewable with
even the most ancient computer with no extra software, easily e-mailable,
immune to linkviruses, ideal for diagrams, formulas, pictures and more,
ASCIIart is simply appropriate technology.

But not for much longer. The Microsoft Corporation doesn't like ASCIIart.
Maybe it's just too efficient, optimised and universally compatible for
their liking. They'd rather we used their HTML-embedding software and
junked our old machines that can't handle their resource-hungry code.

So what are we doing about it? Partying, that's what!

Come to a celebration of the fine ASCII image format at Revolting
Temporary Media Lab. Hack your own ASCII on our machines, bring your own
computer and install free ASCIIart utilities, downshift your newer,
unnecessarily complex image formats to street-level ASCIIart, check out
animated and 3-D ASCIIart, make some ASCIIart for our ASCII video wall,
check out the issues and become an ASCIIactivist!

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    \__\/        \__\/        \__\/        \__\/                   \__\/      

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    /  /\        /  /\        /  /\        /  /\          ___       /  /\     
   /  /:/       /  /::\      /  /::\      /  /:/         /__/\     /  /::|    
  /  /:/       /  /:/\:\    /  /:/\:\    /  /:/          \__\:\   /  /:|:|    
 /  /::\ ___  /  /::\ \:\  /  /:/  \:\  /  /::\____      /  /::\ /  /:/|:|__  
/__/:/\:\  /\/__/:/\:\_\:\/__/:/ \  \:\/__/:/\:::::\  __/  /:/\//__/:/ |:| /\ 
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     /  /:/       /  /:/    \  \:\        |  |:|      \  \:\        |__|::/   
    /__/:/       /__/:/      \  \:\       |__|:|       \__\/        /__/:/    
    \__\/        \__\/        \__\/        \__\|                    \__\/     

==== QUOTE ====

June 19, 1998

Microsoft to ASCII Folk Art: Drop Dead

By Nathaniel Wice

Microsoft handed down a bizarre pronouncement earlier this week,
declaring that ASCII art is dead. The folk art is at least three decades
old, and has populated mainframes with directories full of the Mona Lisa,
Ms. October and the Starship Enterprise -- all rendered with lines of
typewriter characters. The art later spread through the signature (.sig)
files in e-mail, along the way spawning whole new dialects of smileys and
emoticons. As a 1994 FAQ on ASCII art declared, "Ascii art will continue
to be the appropriate, populist technology for graphics on Internet."

Notification of ASCII art's demise came from Redmond in Tuesday's
Internet Explorer Tip of the Day:

CUTE, BUT USELESS
Many people still like to use ASCII characters to draw pictures in their
e-mail. You know, you see those pictures made up of numerous X's, I's,
etc. These things were cool in their day. The problem is, their day is
over. ASCII pictures don't display correctly when the viewer is using
proportional fonts -- and a huge number of people (perhaps most) are
using proportional fonts.

We suggest that you resist the temptation to send ASCII pictures with
your e-mail.

Jorn Barger, the author of the 1994 FAQ, had a different tip of the day
for Microsoft when contacted for a response: "Sophisticated Net users
create tables and graphs and indenting and centering and borders -- all
requiring a monospaced font." He wants the software Goliath to resist a
temptation of its own: "Microsoft feeds on software bloat. Even if they
recognized 'appropriate technology' they'd still be driven to suppress
it." And what's "cool in its day"? "If Bill Gates keeps setting his
applications' default font to proportional, then his users will continue
looking dumb when their e-mail and Net news postings don't wrap properly!"

==== QUOTE ====

"Microsoft isn't impressed with ASCII art's popularity. ASCII Art is the
most universal of computer graphics, albeit the most simple, and uses the
least amount of bandwidth - all one needs is a fixed-width font, and all
computers have that capability... A very common post on USENET's
alt.ascii-art newsgroup comes from people who are having difficulty
changing [Microsoft's] Outlook Explorer default settings so that they can
use ASCII art. Instead of addressing the issue with the software - or
telling people how to readjust the default settings, Microsoft has
suggested that people simply not use the ASCII art. After all, if
everyone purchased a Microsoft product, all could receive graphics and
HTML codes in their mail programs."

Joan Stark - ASCII Artist

====

REVOLTING / TEMPORARY MEDIA LAB
DADI building / 135 Grosvenor Street / Manchester M1 7HE / UK
tel: +44.161.2744373 / fax: +44.161.2476818

REMOTE PARTICIPANTS:
some of the events and presentations will be available as
audio streaming online. see web page for URL - use the forum
for replies.

on web : http://www.yourserver.co.uk/revolting
on air : 106.5 FM
mail   : please use the online forum...

<- lowtech

Next Update: Later