In short, the history of ASCII art started with the old telefax machines which could only send standaard text-characters but people wanted to see pictures too. So they figured out how to create pictures with text-characters. I proudly present my collection of ASCII-cows...moo! If you have some which are not listed yet, please send them to me.
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Cow at 1 meter.         Cow at 100 meters.     Cow at 10,000 meters.