Category Archives: Announcements

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 … Continue reading →

I am all too aware of the problems that have plagued Sixteen Colors over the past year. Thankfully, that time should be over. I am constantly looking to recreate a bigger and better of Sixteen Colors. This has been the case since the first version went live many years ago. During this process I have waffled between many technologies to accomplish the task. Today is the time to make a big change in that regard, and I think it was a long time coming.

Sixteen Colors has run under the .NET Framework for the last five years or so. It has been good when reliable, and offered the best engine for converting ANSIs, ASCIIs, Amiga images, RIP files, XBins, etc. However, with the great work by Brian Cassidy on Image::Textmode and Cleaner on Ansilove, the landscape has changed. I have decided to switch over to a php version of the site for two particular reasons. First, it opens up a lot of options for hosting. Second, it hopefully opens the window for more contributors to the development of the site than just myself.

While I have been laying the foundation for this change for a while, my hand was forced recently. For the last month (two months? more?) the site has been completely useless. No images appear. Due to that limitation, I have rushed together a new version of the site that is very stripped down. I merely wanted a site that would allow you to view every image in every pack. That has mostly been accomplish with this current version. Unfortunately for the moment there is no search functionality, no favoriting, and a lack of metadata (such as artist and group lists). I hope to bring those back before long.

Please let me know what you think of the new site, how it can be improved, and any problems you run into.

• It may take a few hours for the new site to propogate for some people; if you're seeing the old site, that is probably why Continue reading →

I have planned for quite a long time to add an intricate commenting system to the site. Clearly, that has not happened. I have finally broken down and put up a simple forum. Please, jump in, start talking, and we'll … Continue reading →

It seems that no matter how far we drift from the days of the Bulletin Board System, ANSI continues to live on. Proof of this is evident in the creation of a new group, Blocktronics, that is attempting to use … Continue reading →

Retribution is determined to continue to live the dream. Rather than try to restate what he has to say, take a look at his announcement.

For those unaware, Sixteen Colors ANSI Art and ASCII Art Archive is a comprehensive archive of the ANSI Art and ASCII Art computer scenes beginning in 1991. ANSI and ASCII were used extensively in the days prior to the World … Continue reading →

As long-time visitors may notice, things are a little different around here. The person that graciously hosts this site for us had a server migration in the middle of September. Unfortunately, this coincided with my wedding and honeymoon. Due to … Continue reading →