ANSI art is a text art form based on MS-DOS's code page 437 and ANSI.SYS. Similar to '[l[https://battleofthebits.com/lyceum/View/ascii+(format)/[ASCII art], it's origins can be tracked to the history of computing: in ANSI's case, its development and relevance among computer users primarily coincided with the BBS scene's rise and fall. It is comprised of a character sheet with a total 256 character count. It also uses 16 text colors and between 8 and 16 background colors, depending on which coloring standard is being used. The de facto file format used for ANSI Art is .ans. '[#[Things to Know] '[ul['[li[The amount of background colors available to you is dependent on whether or not you are using a semi-unofficial standard "iCE Colors", created by art group iCE. iCE Colors allow you to use every color as background to text.]'[li[ANSI files have a feature to allow characters to flash (strobing of certain characters with a length of ~1 second) indefinitely. In order to utilize this feature, most programs require you to use the second row of background colors (the brighter colors) whilst iCE Colors is off.]] '[#[Tools] '[t[b2]GUI-based PC's'[/t] (windows, mac, linux) - '[l[http://picoe.ca/products/pablodraw/[PabloDraw] - what appears to be the most used ANSI editor today. Less resource intensive. - '[l[https://blocktronics.github.io/moebius/[Moebius] - similar to PabloDraw, more focused on aesthetics. '[t[b2]DOS'[/t] - '[l[http://download.cnet.com/ACiDDraw-ANSI-Editor/3000-2192_4-10005588.html[ACiDDraw] - created and used by the ANSI group ACiD. - '[l[http://www.syaross.org/thedraw/[The Draw] - THE original DOS user's ANSI editor. '[t[b2]Tools'[/t] - '[l[https://github.com/BourgeoisBear/ansiart2utf8[ansiart2utf8] - a Linux tool that does exactly what its name says. '[#[See Also] '[l[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_art[Wikipedia article] '[l[https://16colo.rs/[16colo.rs] (formerly Sixteen Colors) - an ANSI art archive '[l[http://www.roysac.com/learn/default.html[Roy/SAC's ASCII Art Academy] - resources & tutorials for making 7- and 8-bit ASCII art, as well as ANSI art '[l[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437[cp437] - wiki article about higher order ascii characters used in ANSI art
