p r o d u c t i o n s
A . A . A ax.rmrs.ice
Aces of ANSi Art
Even beginnings have a beginning.
here to begin?
Aces of ANSi Art was an alliance of artists who specialized
in one thing: ANSI. Although their specific date of birth is
not known, it is approximated to have been some time late in the
year of 1989...
Aces existed in one form or another from 1989 - 1991. Formed
by two people, Zyphril and Chips Ahoy of San Jose, California,
Aces of ANSi Art A.A.A was indisputably the first underground
or elite ANSI group, and possibly the first organization of ANSI
artists ever assembled. Their motives for the creation of this
group were simple: put out some cool artwork, help out sysops
and get name-brand recognition. Strength in numbers was realized.
In September of 1990, several key players from the group left
to form one of their own. This dealt a devastating blow to Aces
and for several months after it was unclear whether or not the
group had seen its last days. Something happened a local artist
by the name of Mondoman came aboard, releasing a fury of ANSIs
and arguably some of the best ANSI animations seen in A.A.A. New
life was breathed into the group, attracting others once more.
The selection of ANSI artwork included in this archive, while
authorized, is partial. This is a modest representation of what
was drawn by artists of this era but is by no means definitive.
While there are 84 ANSIs and 2 executable ANSI loaders included,
much artwork is missing from the likes of Chips Ahoy, Icepirate,
The Beholder, even myself.
You will find that each of the artists represented have a
distinctive style. Many of these ANSIs are animated or make
creative use of the blinking attributes. Most Windows based
viewers show only the final page of an animated ANSI, effectively
stripping out all the animated action preceding the last screen,
and also tend to disable the blinking attribute all together.
It is recommended that a capable viewer such as ACiD View 4.36f
included be used in full-screen text-mode for proper display.
By the time A.A.A had faded away, so many events which would
change the face of the art scene had yet to happen. There were no
VGANS collages of ANSI, or decent ANSI viewers, let alone one
which supported real-time VGA-mode down-scaled browsing of an ANSI.
To display an ANSI, one would type it from DOS, or view it the
way it was meant to, while connected to another BBS. To imagine
what something might look like in VGA mode, the only thing one
could do was to distance themselves as far away as possible from
their monitor and use some imagination, one screen-full at a time.
No SAUCE descriptions to declare the title, author, and organization
to identify your artwork, just eight mighty characters prepending
the de facto file extension of dot A-N-S. Most importantly in
the context of this writing, the concept of an artpack, let alone
an artpack comprised of new artwork released on a monthly basis
had yet to be seen. Relatively speaking, this is the most
comprehensive collection of artwork by Aces in circulation, and
the one and only pack to stand out proudly in our 1991 directory
on the ACiD Artpacks Archive:
ftp://ftp.artpacks.acid.org/pub/artpacks/artpacks/1991/.
These ANSIs represent a sign of the times, but mean a lot to
me in other ways. ACiDs lineage traces directly back to Aces of
ANSi Art. If it werent for that precursory inspiration in 1990,
I can only imagine how different things would be today.
I owe a great many thanks to many people who assisted in
one way or another with the assemblage of this set. Especially
when you take in to consideration that these files are now
teenagers themselves...
Sources included:
- Private collection by Mondoman former A.A.A
and ACiD Artist
- AAA.ZIP, a very small and unauthorized sampler
released by Cavalier former CCi Net administrator
and RNDserv bot operator on the ANSI of yore
- ACID.ZIP also known as ACID1.ZIP, ACID-1.ZIP,
an unofficial release of early ACiD and AAA artwork
by an anonymous individual. The accompanying
FILEID.DIZ still makes me cringe to this day.
- Hacker Chronicles CD-ROM / P-80 International
Information Systems
- Jason Scott Sketch the Cow textfiles.com
- My own personal collection of 5.25 3.5 diskettes,
miraculously still intact and readable!
Thank you for reading,
Christian Wirth aka RaD Man mailto: radman@acid.org
Senior Advisor and Founder,
ACiD Productions
Post Office Box 24523 fax: 775.854.6161
San Jose, CA 95154-4523 http://www.acid.org
U.S.A. aim:goim?screennameACiD+Productions