"Applied" ASCII art

Hi, Habr! The author of a recent article spoke about a variety of ASCII art, which seems to be not exactly “art,” that is, art. For it serves practical purposes: to show a small sketch, a graph, an electrical or other scheme ... I also decided to recall something on this subject.

WA1-oo-+VD1-o-+ | | | | LCC R<-+ 1 1 2 1 | | | | | | |-oo------o-+ | +-----------------+ +--R3--+C6--| | | o--C3+-o-|4 8|-o-C7+-o-BA1-Vcc | | DA1 | | +------+ | 174 | | | | 4 | | o-C4+-R2-|2 6|-------+ | | |--C5+---|5 7|-Vcc | | |--------|9 | 

Once IDE for PLC worked the same way as most other serious programs of the time - in text mode. A programmer could peer at something like this (taken from here ):

 | (NC physical (NC physical | | Switch) Switch) | | Low Level High Level Fill Valve | |------[ ]------|------[ ]----------------------(OUT)---------| | | | | | | | | | | Fill Valve | | |------[ ]------| | | | | | 

Those modern PLCs that have built-in displays on the HD44780 can still do this today.
')
But even being at the computer, where the graphic mode is the only and non-alternative (for example, BC), the compiler of the instruction or reference book could, by inertia, compile such (a fragment of the K1801BM1 microprocessor block diagram, from here ):

  1 34 30 29 35 31 32 33 | | | | | | | | CLC| | ACLO| DCLO| VIRQ| IRQ1| IRQ2| IRQ3| | INIT| | | | | | | \|/ | \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ | \|/ | | | | | | |___|___| /|\ |_|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_| | | | |  | |- | | |  | || | |_______________|_________________| |___|___| | | | | /|\ /|\ | | | | | 

Inertia continued in the nineties, and even at the beginning of zero. For example, a sketch made in 1997:

  __________________________ / /\ | | | | SOUP CAN | | | | | | | | | | __ | RUBBER | | ( ) | SHEET __\ | | (__) | / | | | /__ WITH | | | \ HOLE | | | | | | | | | \_________________________\/ 

This is a generator of vortex rings, familiar to many ( from here ): on the one side there is a membrane, on the other - a wall with a hole.

Could and electrical circuit so to portray. If at the same time pseudographic characters were taken from the second part of the code table, the binding to the encoding was obtained. From KOI-8R to 866 and back it is still possible to translate, and in 1251, where there are no such characters, this is already a problem. When using additional features of editors, for example, Vortex (for BC) or “Word and Deed”, it turned out to be generally linked to a specific editor. Vortex was generally the most comfortable thing: you won’t immediately understand in which editor the layout was made, in text or graphic. But the rejection of all this provided a real cross-platform. It was possible to draw up a scheme, for example, on the “Amiga”, and look at the “Corvette”. Here is a polarity converter from + 5V to -5V, a useful thing for experimenting with KR580VM80, diodes anodes up, from here :

  +V ^ | +-------+---+ | | | -V Output R1 |8 |4 +----+---> | 7 ------- | | Parts List: +-----| | D2 | IC1 = 555 | +--| | + | | R1 = 1.5K R2 | 6| IC1 |---C1--+ | R2 = 10K | | | |3 | | C1 = 10uF,16V +--+--| | D1 C2 C2 = 22uF,16V | 2| | | |+ C3 = 1500pF | ------- | | D1,D2 = 1N4001 diodes C3 |1 | | | | | | +---------+-----------+----+ | === (GND) 

There was no standard for ASCII schemes. Especially in terms of how to designate the intersection of conductors without a connection, but as with a connection. Some preferred this method:

  | -+-  | | | ---  -|-  | | 

Others are:

  | | -o-  -*-  | | | -+-  | 

In both cases, quickly navigate was easy. A breakdown of the scheme into fragments allowed virtually to get rid of intersections.

Why did they continue to do this when almost everyone had VGA and higher video cards? There are several reasons.

1. The format was suitable for newsgroups and Fidonet.
2. A text (or HTML) and a set of illustrations in ASCII is one file, and it is not an archive. For text editors, which allow merging text and graphics into one file (one of them is Word and Deed again), there was no single standard yet. In general, there is no standard yet, but modern office suites at least somehow import the formats each other, and then ... Yes, and not everyone liked the binding to a specific editor.
3. No less "zoo" took place in the world of graphic formats. The current standard de facto “PNG, GIF, JPEG” did not come immediately. There were BMP, PCX and others. Then, of course, came up with multi-format viewers, such as PV.
4. Not always were sites with built-in photo hosting sites, such as Habr or Samodelkin. Third-party photo hosting sites demolished images after years of age or due to the lack of views.
5. Older VGA cards in graphics mode provided a lower frame rate. When everyone had CRT monitors, it mattered. And the matrix printers printed text in Draft mode very quickly.

Well, why now all this? First, nostalgia. After all, they write beeper music, although today even a push-button telephone for MP3 rubles loses MP3. Secondly, fragments of diagrams explaining what to connect to in ASCII format are conveniently placed directly into sketches. This is how (taken from here ) you can save the findings of the Arduino by connecting indicators through counters to it:



Use this technique and you, and the one who decides to repeat your design, you will save unnecessary gestures. If he downloaded the sketch a long time ago, and forgot where he was from, he wouldn’t have to remember or search.