From: spunk1111@aol.com (Spunk1111)
Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art
Subject: Re: ASCII??
Date: 4 Sep 1998 17:00:20 GMT
-
Re ASCII.nws
INFO:


>Message-id: <01bdd80e$4f2357e0$4c662e9c@austin>
>uhh excuse me but it seems to me that ASCII isnt you pictures... but things
>like this th_xtn
>for example has ASCII characters...your / | \ arent ascii characters..

If you look in any 'simple' computer reference material,
 you will find that there is a difference between ASCII and
non-ASCII characters.  ASCII are the characters which are
universal from system to system.  ASCII is an acronym for
the American Standard Code for Information Interchange.
This code represents English characters as numbers, with
each letter assigned a number from 0 to 127.  For example,
the ASCII code for an uppercase M is 77.  This character
set uses 7 bits for each character.  A larger character set
uses 8 bits and is known as "extended-ASCII" or "high
ASCII" .  These extra characters are used to represent
 non-English characters, graphics symbols and mathmatical
symbols (such as in the example you posted above).  The
extended characters and their numerical code have been
defined by IBM, but they have not been officially 
standardized.  This is why they are NOT included in true
ASCII art renderings.

The ANSI (an acronym for American National Standards
Institute) character set includes special characters and
associated codes which have been adopted by the ANSI.
Many of these characters overlap the extended-ASCII
character set but they use different codes.

To conclude this technical blurb... all those characters that
you list and identify as ASCII are not.   They do not fall
within the numerical codes of 0 to 127.   Of couse to further
complicate the issue, ASCII art doesn't use the numerical
codes from 0 to 31 as they are control codes such as backspace
and delete.   B'ger has posted the list of acceptable characters,
so I won't bother doing that again.  If you have more questions,
visit the newsgroup's FAQ.  There is info about ASCII and
non-ASCII characters there.  A copy of the FAQ can be
found at:  http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/faq.htm

-joan
spunk1111@juno.com
ASCII ART GALLERY:  http://www.ascii-art.com/

>I have a question that might be a bit lame... :o)
>
>What Exactly is ascii-art? For me it's art that can be shown without any
>colors, for example in Notepad or Edit, and that doesn't need ansi.sys.
>My friends think that ascii is drawing with the basic line-characters,
>and they use ansi-codes in their pics.


This was just posted to this group :


"The only Ascii characters which should be posted and used in Ascii
Art are:  
               Decimal characters   32 to 127.

The Extended Character Set of Decimal 128 to 255 made by using the 
Alt key, and used for ANSI pictures, must be UUENCODED before 
posting to the Net and should not be used in ASCII artwork pictures.  

The Decimal Characters 0 to 31 are control codes and should not
be used in ASCII artwork."




Jens-Morten Dahl


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

                               WARNING        Revised  18 Jul 98

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



*** HTML added and Ascii Art Ten Commandments ***



Control Codes:
-------------

PLEASE do *NOT* post Colour, Color, Control Codes, HTML or Animation 
Codes to ASCII-ART newsgroups - or indeed ANY Internet newsgroup.  

It can cause an awful lot of trouble on Net systems worldwide.

If you do wish to post Raw Code then UUENCODE it first !

Colour & Color Control Codes in subject titles and headers should be 
avoided entirely.  



Extended Character Set:
----------------------

The only Ascii characters which should be posted and used in Ascii
Art are:  
               Decimal characters   32 to 127.

The Extended Character Set of Decimal 128 to 255 made by using the 
Alt key, and used for ANSI pictures, must be UUENCODED before 
posting to the Net and should not be used in ASCII artwork pictures.  

The Decimal Characters 0 to 31 are control codes and should not
be used in ASCII artwork.




                Here is a chart of ascii characters:
                 [ provided by llizard 21/7/97 ]

  ----------------------------------------------------------------- 
 }|  No, no, no, MUSTN'T use these:                               |{
 }|                                                               |{
 }|  0 NUL|  1 SOH|  2 STX|  3 ETX|  4 EOT|  5 ENQ|  6 ACK|  7 BEL|{
 }|  8 BS |  9 HT | 10 NL | 11 VT | 12 NP | 13 CR | 14 SO | 15 SI |{
 }| 16 DLE| 17 DC1| 18 DC2| 19 DC3| 20 DC4| 21 NAK| 22 SYN| 23 ETB|{
 }| 24 CAN| 25 EM | 26 SUB| 27 ESC| 28 FS | 29 GS | 30 RS | 31 US |{
 }|       |                                                       |{
 }|---------------------------------------------------------------|{
 }| Yes, yes, yes, MUST use these:                                |{
 }|                                                               |{
 }| 32 SP | 33  ! | 34  " | 35  # | 36  $ | 37  % | 38  & | 39  ' |{
 }| 40  ( | 41  ) | 42  * | 43  + | 44  , | 45  - | 46  . | 47  / |{
 }| 48  0 | 49  1 | 50  2 | 51  3 | 52  4 | 53  5 | 54  6 | 55  7 |{
 }| 56  8 | 57  9 | 58  : | 59  ; | 60  < | 61  = | 62  > | 63  ? |{
 }| 64  @ | 65  A | 66  B | 67  C | 68  D | 69  E | 70  F | 71  G |{
 }| 72  H | 73  I | 74  J | 75  K | 76  L | 77  M | 78  N | 79  O |{
 }| 80  P | 81  Q | 82  R | 83  S | 84  T | 85  U | 86  V | 87  W |{
 }| 88  X | 89  Y | 90  Z | 91  [ | 92  \ | 93  ] | 94  ^ | 95  _ |{
 }| 96  ` | 97  a | 98  b | 99  c |100  d |101  e |102  f |103  g |{
 }|104  h |105  i |106  j |107  k |108  l |109  m |110  n |111  o |{
 }|112  p |113  q |114  r |115  s |116  t |117  u |118  v |119  w |{
 }|120  x |121  y |122  z |123  { |124  | |125  } |126  ~ |       |{
 }|---------------------------------------------------------------|{
 }| No, no, no, MUST'NT use this one either:                      |{
 }|                                                       |127 DEL|{
  ----------------------------------------------------------------- 

           The ones you mustn't use are control codes.



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


Please do NOT post Colour & Color Control Codes in message headers 
and titles.  


     The problems are due to some Net software recognising the 
     Raw Code as commands which make the software do unwanted 
     things and can even cause a system to crash.  


====================================================================
This message is being reposted frequently because many newcomers
to the Net do not seem to know the problems caused by Control Codes 
used for Color, HTML, Animations etc.
====================================================================


       * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
       *                                                   *
       *        HTML, Mime, Java etc are not ASCII  !      *
       *                                 ^^^               *
       * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

