Overprinting (surprint) In the 1970s and early 1980s it was popular to produce a kind of text art that relied on overprinting. This could be produced either on a screen or on a printer by typing a character, backing up, and then typing another character, just as on a typewriter. This developed into sophisticated graphics in some cases, such as the PLATO system (circa 1973), where superscript and subscript allowed a wide variety of graphic effects. A common use was for emoticons, with WOBTAX and VICTORY both producing convincing smiley faces.PLATO Emoticons, revisited, Brian Dear, PLATO History: Remembering the future, 19 September 2012 Overprinting had previously been used on typewriters, but the low-resolution pixelation of characters on video terminals meant that overprinting here produced seamless pixel graphics, rather than visibly overstruck combinations of letters on paper.
Overprinting (surprint) In the 1970s and early 1980s it was popular to produce a kind of text art that relied on overprinting This could be produced either on a screen or on a printer by typing a character backing up and then typing another character just as on a typewriter This developed into sophisticated graphics in some cases such as the PLATO system (circa 1973) where superscript and subscript allowed a wide variety of graphic effects A common use was for emoticons with WOBTAX and VICTORY both producing convincing smiley facesPLATO Emoticons revisited Brian Dear PLATO History Remembering the future 19 September 2012 Overprinting had previously been used on typewriters but the low-resolution pixelation of characters on video terminals meant that overprinting here produced seamless pixel graphics rather than visibly overstruck combinations of letters on paper