Where are all of the pretty graphics and sound?

Computer bulletin boards came way before the graphics and sound we now take for granted on the Internet. However, they COULD display crude graphics called ANSI. Here is some information about ANSI and the ANSI art scene that was so popular back when I had my original BBS in the 1990s.

{From Wikipedia)
ANSI art is a computer art form that was widely used at one time on bulletin board systems. It is similar to ASCII art, but constructed from a larger set of 256 letters, numbers, and symbols — all codes found in IBM code page 437, often referred to as extended ASCII and used in MS-DOS and Unix[1] environments.

 

Overview
ANSI art is considerably more flexible than ASCII art, because the particular character set it uses contains symbols intended for drawing, such as a wide variety of box-drawing characters and block characters that dither the foreground and background color. It also adds accented characters and math symbols that often find creative use among ANSI artists.

 

The rise of the internet caused the decline of both BBSes and DOS users, which made ANSI graphics harder to create and to view due to the lack of software compatible with the new dominant operational system Microsoft Windows.

 

In the end of 2002, all traditional ANSI art groups like ACiD, ICE, CIA, Fire, Dark and many others, were no longer making periodic releases of artworks, called "artpacks" and the community of artists almost vanished. Since then this form of art is no longer practiced to the degree it once was, but was still kept alive by fewer newly created groups like SENSE, 27inch and the late Blocktronics Textmode Art Collective, founded in 2008, and that currently releases artpacks created by artists from all around the world.

 

Nowadays ANSI graphics have a niche utility for a few telnet BBSes still active and is mainly created by artists for the sake of it and exhibited as an example of retro digital art. The creation of newer Microsoft Windows compatible software like ACiDDraw, TundraDraw and the currently most used PabloDraw, which runs on both Windows and Mac, allowed the small number of remaining artists to keep creating ANSI art. ANSI Art is also practised among demoscene hobbyists still in the 2020s and ANSI art compos (competitions) are regularly held at various demoparties.