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ASCII a question I tell you no lies.

© Joe Jeskiewicz

In a decade not to long before our own, the human race suddenly encountered a deadly threat to its very existence, and this terrifying enemy surfaced, as such enemies often do, in the seemingly most innocent and unlikely of places. No, it's not the Little Shop of Horrors that I am talking about. I'm talking about the fabled Bulletin Board Systems.

Once upon a time, before the internet became the monster it is today, there lived a quite little system to talk to local friends and family in a digital electronic like way. This fanciful way, mysterious to many, unknown by some, and forgotten by others, was the BBS way. The BBS, or Bulletin Board System, was a fun and relatively safe way to talk to people in the community by connecting one computer to another, only one computer at a time. There was no such thing as a million users at once. And why was that? Because a BBS was run by one person who generally only had one phone line.

Oh sure, some people got fancy and had two or even three phones lines coming into their house for the express purpose of running a BBS but the general rule of thumb was one person at a time, like standing in line at the ATM, and you waited your turn. The busy signal was a common sound in those days.

Also, the BBS system for along time had never heard of 56k, or 56,000 Baud Rate, Modems. What passed as a speedy tele-vehicle at the time was 2,400 baud, 4,800 baud, and the almost mythical 9,600 Baud rate modem. "Wow!" you exclaim comparing the 56,000 to 4,800. But be aware that some of us were so far back that we can remember the 1,200 and the 300 Baud rate modems. But they died out quickly as some BBS computers began restricting users to 2,400 and more.

Oh, the horror that the Internet has brought upon us as millions of users a day can rapidly and quickly access pornography sites, bomb-making sites, Racially discriminating sites and all at the rapid click of a 'w' and a 'w' and a 'w'. Sure the BBS has problems but it took more savvy and more personal/social connections in order to get into trouble.

What does any of this history have to do with Art and making art you ponder? Because the BBS brought quickly upon us the popularization of ASCII art. What is ASCII art? ASCII art is artwork that is made up entirely of digital characters like each of the individual letters and symbols that you are looking at as you read this.