Legendary ASCII game ‘Dwarf Fortress’ is coming to Steam

The 17-year-old classic Dwarf Fortress is considered a pioneer in gaming through its massive, highly interactive world, but it's a tough sell to modern gamers with its ASCII graphics and its absence on modern game stores. That won't be an issue for...

Google’s Tenor slips GIFs into your command line interface

If you live in the command line, you probably like to give that otherwise plain interface your own distinctive touch, like ASCII art. But wouldn't it be nice if you could spice it up with a GIF? You can now. Google's Tenor team has released a GIFs fo...

Electric Typewriter Modded to Make ASCII Art Portraits: Chartography

Last month we saw artist Dmitry Morozov’s 8-bit instant camera. His latest work is an even more primitive camera. Dmitry calls it the i/o, an electric typewriter that makes portraits using ASCII characters.

typewriter_ascii_art_portrait_by_Dmitry_Morozov_1zoom in

The i/o is based on a Brother SX-4000 augmented with a camera and an Arduino.

The most important lesson here is that typewriters are extremely noisy. Damn. Head to Dmitry’s website to see more of his technological art.

[via Gadgetify]

YouTube celebrates Geek Week with Unix overhaul, eyes flinch universally

DNP YouTube celebrates Geek Week with Unix conversion, eyes bleed worldwide

To celebrate its upcoming Geek Week event, YouTube has started an Easter egg hunt on its Twitter feed. If you wanna see just what the video giant has planned but can't decipher its cryptic 140 character clues, we've got you covered. Simply (spoiler alert) enter "/ geekweek" minus the quotation marks into the site's search field for a Unix terminal-style conversion and gawk away. Fair warning: Your eyes might hate you for what you'll see.

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Source: YouTube (Twitter)

Text-Based Multiplayer Shooter: Zork of Duty

Halo 4 just came out, and there’s never any shortage of multiplayer shooters available, but if you’ve already topped the leaderboard, fragged everyone, topped the fragleader or boarded everyone – my expertise regarding the current state of multiplayer combat games is, shall we say, non-existent – why not have a go at this text-based multiplayer shooter?

text based multiplayer shooter game by eigen lenk

This text-based multiplayer shooter is called… Text-based Multiplayer Shooter. It plays like the text-based adventure and role-playing games from the 70′s and 80′s. You type ‘go <direction>’ to move – e.g. go south – and then ‘fire’ to take a shot. As you can see I managed to hit a wall. Woohoo! Wall pwned! Here’s a more thorough look at the game courtesy of YouTuber CyBorg Plague (along with an ample does of swearing):

It’s the most frantic way to learn how to touch type. You can play Text-based Multiplayer Shooter for free on Eigen Lenk’s website. Bring your imagination with you.

[via Waxy]

 

 


Google Street View goes retro with unofficial ASCII treatment

Google Street View goes retro with unofficial ASCII treatment

Nostalgia is a powerful force. It's driven some to search Google through a Bulletin Board System-like interface or, in the case of programmer Peter Nitsch, it's compelled him to graft ASCII art onto the physical world. Simply plug an address into his project's website and you'll be able to pan through an ASCII facsimile of a real-world Street View vista. Leveraging WebGL and Javascript, the system samples the search giant's images and generates text art using the appropriate characters and hues. Nitsch's fondness for retro visualizations don't end there, however, he also created a system that superimposes a gaggle of characters in the wake of a physical paintbrush using a Kinect and a projector. Built as a plugin for the openFrameworks toolkit, the code relies on a GPU for the real-time image conversion and is freely available for tinkering. Hit the source link below to see the modified Street View in action or head past the break for a video of the ASCII painting. For some of the technical nitty-gritty, tap the more coverage link.

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Google Street View goes retro with unofficial ASCII treatment originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Aug 2012 06:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASCII Street View: Look at the Matrix

Here’s a fun and trippy hack made by programmer Peter Nitsch. Nitsch’s website converts feed from Google’s Street View to ASCII art in real time. You can also search for locations, just like in the vanilla web app. And yep, it has a “green mode.”

ascii street view by peter nitsch

Here’s a closer look at that shot:

ascii street view by peter nitsch 2

And here’s the Matrix mode:

ascii street view by peter nitsch 3

You really should see it for yourself. Nitsch recommends using Chrome or Firefox 8 and above. The characters change as the view slowly pans. It’s like looking at the world from the point of view of a computer.

[via Waxy]


BBS version of Google takes you back in time, won’t hog your phone line

BBS version of Google takes you back in time, won't hog your phone line
If the third digit of your birth year is a nine (or heck, a zero), you'll likely never have experienced the true agony joy that was BBS or Bulletin Board Systems. Well, thanks to nostalgic developer Norbert Landsteiner, you can take a glimpse at how your dad got online with an HTML / JavaScript emulation BBS Google. Likewise, more seasoned travelers of the internet can take a trip down memory lane and see what Mountain View's search engine might have looked like "back in the day." All the details are there, right down to the familiar modem tones and ASCII graphics, it's even somewhat functional (when the API isn't over its limit.) So, want to appreciate that browser you complain about on twitter all the time over your LTE connection? Tab on down to the source link for a lesson in gratitude.

BBS version of Google takes you back in time, won't hog your phone line originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 14 Apr 2012 15:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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