In the early days of computers, what could be displayed on the monitor was limited to plain ASCII text. In the early 1980s computer users began to experiment with ways of forming block letters and simple pictures using only these 255 characters. Later, during the mid 1980s, when modems and networking technology began to allow computer users to communicate with each other, Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) became popular, and their operators used this ASCII art to add pictures to their systems, which were still limited to plain text. A "scene" of artists arose to fill the need for original art to distinguish one BBS from another.
Later, as computer technology developed, monitors were available that could display color and the American National Standards Institute invented a system of "escape codes" which were inserted into the text, denoting a foreground and background color for the section of the text it referred to. Not only were the same styles used for "ASCII art" able now to be colored, but the solid block and the empty space were able to be used much like pixels in a bitmap, a style commonly referred to as "ANSI art."
The artists who made up this scene formed into "groups" not unlike graffiti "crews." The first ANSI group was called Aces of ANSI Art (AAA). Other groups like ACiD (Ansi Creators in Demand) and iCE (Insane Creators Enterprises) quickly began to spring up. These groups would release their work in "artpacks," which were distributed on the BBSs. Many groups still exist today, their art is primarily being distributed on the internet.
A later mothod of transmitting graphics over a BBS was developed called Remote Imaging Protocol or RIP, which required special software on both the BBS and the terminal end. RIP was still basically text, but the text referred to the positions of lines, curves, fills, and other steps in drawing graphics on an EGA display of 640x480x16 colors. While RIP never caught on in the BBS world, the art scene embraced it as a form of expression, if not a viable method of displaying art on a BBS.
VGA graphics were high resolution images comparable to the color depth and resolution of graphics now seen on the web. VGA art could not be displayed on a BBS, and was at the time of the early scene relatively cumbersome to download. Today the VGA scene has evolved into the hires scene, using higher resolutions and greater depth of color, not to mention more advanced software and techniques.
Lit, short for literature is original poetry and prose released by groups very similar in structure to the visual art-oriented groups of the scene.
