Prospects for ASCII in various fields of activity

Abstract

Today, in the era of computerization, a colossal variety of processes in a number of sometimes completely dissimilar areas of activity comes down to the need to monitor and transmit graphic information. however, it is not always possible to process, transmit or even receive this information, and the user periodically faces the problem of limited resources, traffic or time to work with a graph, diagram or image. One of the possible solutions to the listed problems may be the use of ASCII, in particular ASCII art. This standard for encoding text information has its own history of appearance and development. Inseparable from the history of ASCII is the history of the formation of ASCII art as a form of digital art, which still exists and enjoys some popularity in some circles in the Internet space. When visiting long-standing forums, it’s hard not to come across works of ASCII art where it serves as a way to attract attention or self-expression of the author, especially on those forums that do not involve attaching images or other files in comments. Despite the fact that ASCII has been around for decades, it still seems possible for it to find practical applications. The ASCII coding standard is in many ways inferior in flexibility to such encoding as Unicode, but it also has unobvious advantages, including the need for fewer required resources. This article touches on the history of the emergence of the ASCII text encoding standard and ASCII art, discusses specific examples of the areas of application of ASCII today and proposes new ideas for its use in development, medicine, education, art and design.