Sixteen Colors ANSI/ASCII Art Archive

The Triumphant Return

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Doug Moore

Sadly, the Sixteen Colors ANSI Art and ASCII Art Archive has been down since the end of September, 2010. Changes were made to our shared hosting environment and I never got around to making changes to accommodating them. Sometime in the intervening moments I was approached by Brian Cassidy, once known as Mighty Mouse, regarding the site. He wanted to take a shot at writing a version of the site. I was more than happy to have someone else getting their hands dirty with the site, and gave him my blessing. For at least the fifth time in its life, Sixteen Colors was to undergo a rewrite from the ground up. As of today, that rewrite is complete enough for public consumption! We will continue to improve upon the site, but Sixteen Colors is no longer a dead site!

If you are not familiar with Brian, he is responsible for one of the most complete rendering engines for textmode artwork, Image::TextMode. In fact, the most recent version of the Sixteen Colors, which died in September, was using Image::TextMode. Brian was an ANSI artist many years ago, but like many of us, has turned to programming. He, along with others, has been one of the voices in my ear to keep Sixteen Colors thriving. As the site has neared completion I have jumped in to help with the code, but the site you see before you now is largely due to his hard work.

While Brian has worked hard to get a site that is functioning put together, we have also begun to piece together the backbone of a community that can keep the archive alive with or without the Sixteen Colors website. All of the code for Sixteen Colors is available on github as a public repository. In addition, the entire archive is mirrored on github for your consumption. Ansilove, another fine textmode rendering engine, has already begun to host a mirror off of the github repository. Anyone is free to mirror the archive, but if you would like to be listed as  a mirror, please let us know. We also welcome anyone who would like to contribute to coding the site. Anything you are able to contribute, be it content, code, images, ideas or any other valuable skill is of use. No contribution is too small. Our goal is not to keep the archive for ourselves, but to keep ANSI, ASCII and all textmode art alive and remembered.

The last important piece of the github community is the ability to submit "Issues." Issues are not only bugs, but also ideas. Definitely submit any bugs to the list of github issues, but also include anything you would like to see that is not already listed. In addition, you can up vote bugs or ideas that you think are important. We will do our best to implement or fix anything that appears in the issues list.

For those I haven't lost through boredom or sleep, I want to make one more recognition. The design of both the dead version and current version were created by Luciano Ayres, also known as Enzo. Luciano has been one of the most prolific artists and steadfast proponents of ANSI over the past five years. He, along with the other members of Blocktronics, have worked to keep people creating ANSI art and keep the process enjoyable and inclusive. Please check out their packs and consider contributing to their efforts.

Posted in Announcements | 5 Comments
  • empty

    Well,

    I had to reply. I got the wild urge tonight to look through my old old back ups and ran across a bunch of art for my old board which I never put up. In doing that, I hop onto effnet and #ansi/ascii and run across Filth of all people who reminds me about this site so I visit and see this post.

    I have no idea if Brian'll remember me, I used to talk to him quite frequently when we were in the same group as Empty(CIA was the group). So any chance any of this could get passed to him? Or an email address gotten? I'd love to catch up. It's weird seeing some of my art on this site, but this site is truly great. So many memories. Just, wow.

    • http://sixteencolors.net Doug Moore

      I will make sure he sees it.

      The name seems familiar to me as well, but I don't know that we talked a lot. I went by Lord Scarlet.

  • dngrmouse

    Guys, I've got to take my hat off to you. This is a seriously kick ass site. Love the thumbnails scrolling, love the search and the ANSI theme. Great work.

  • http://www.jashiin.com Jashiin

    I would love to help out with some of the problems - for example, I could fill the blanks and correct some errors in descriptions of quite a few ASCII artworks. I love textmode art, I have recently returned to drawing serious ASCII, and what you're aiming at is, to me, a noble and worthy goal; I too would like to keep the artform alive - by continuing to draw.

    That said, I'm completely baffled by the website's current state. There's no way to register, and the only login accepted is an OpenID, which I am not planning to get. There's no way to contact anyone in charge (and no way to find out who's in charge, by the way) without registering here and leaving a comment - and given that the last entry was made months ago, I have no idea if anyone is ever going to see it. Last but not least, to report any issues one apparently must register at github. That's two too many registrations required for a simple task. Admittedly, I don't know if this is a design flaw or simply the result of recent downtime and changes.

    Anyway, I would like to help, but I fail to see how it's even possible to contribute anything. So, eh, mail me if there's anything I can do.

    -J

    • http://sixteencolors.net Doug Moore

      First of all, I apologize for the problems you have mentioned. We want to make Sixteen Colors the best site it can be, but unfortunately it can be hard to find time.

      As you noted, there is no "Sixteen Colors registration" we are currently only using OpenID. Is there another standard you would be more comfortable with? It seems like a waste of effort to build our own account management system when there are so many valid options out there based on open standards. In regards to reporting a problem, yes, registering is required. Unfortunately this is the easiest/cheapest/etc way for us to track problems -- as with the openid registration, we don't want to reinvent the wheel on functionality that already exists. We want to focus on the functionality that is unique to Sixteen Colors.

      As far as contact information, that is among our top issues right now. We are (unfortunately slowly) tweaking the interface and adding better information about the site. This is near completion, but not quite ready to post. When it is, hopefully it will be much easier to find us. In the meantime you can always reach us at contact@sixteencolors.net, on twitter, or on facebook.

      Now, back to the meat of the question. Our TOP priority regarding functionality is to improve the ability to add, edit and search metadata. Clearly that is very limited right now. It is at the top of our to-do list, we just have to find time to complete it. We wish this is something we could promise quickly, but it all comes down to finding time in our busy lives. This is why we are always reaching out for anyone that would like to help.