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. Scene The ANSI artform found wide popularity and distribution on BBS systems throughout North America and the world. Its use of standard computer symbols and colors by particularly talented individuals made it somewhat of a 'cult' art form and provided a springboard for talented computer artists in later years. This form gave rise to a 'scene', or subculture community of artists who created competitive groups, similar to hackers (and sometimes overlapping these groups). These groups would assemble their best, most current art into downloadable 'packs' for distribution on BBS systems. These could be simply zipped packs of loose art with some text files explaining them, or encoded programs that displayed the art, sometimes with music in MOD format accompanying. See also ANSI escape code TheDraw References Bibliography Scott, Jason. "BBS: The Documentary" (DVD). Boston, MA: Bovine Ignition Systems, 2005. Danet, Brenda. "Cyberpl@y: Communicating Online". Oxford, UK: Berg, 2001. . "Dark Domain: the artpacks.acid.org collection" (DVD-ROM). San Jose, CA, USA: ACiD Productions, LLC, 2004. . Zetter, Kim. How Humble BBS Begat Wired World. Wired News. June 8, 2005. External links A detailed table of the character set in IBM code page 437 ASCII art Bulletin board systems