# Holy molies! Matrix ASCII art



## Perseus (Aug 22, 2005)

Am I the only one who hasn't seen this? WOW!!!

http://abstract.cs.washington.edu/~renacer/ascii-matrix.html.gz


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## sirstaunch (Aug 22, 2005)

I don't trust it, it downloaded a 403kb file and has the safari icon and info says it's 4.4mb

Beware!!!!!


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 22, 2005)

I just tried it -- it seems harmless.  It's an ascii animation of a short clip of the Matrix movie.  Kinda cool... 

<checks home folder -- it's cool, everything's still there>


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## sirstaunch (Aug 23, 2005)

Cool, just cautious after the download and size differ, just looked, it's great


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## Gig' (Aug 23, 2005)

really   indeed

size differ as download is gzip compressed file vs html


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## sirstaunch (Aug 23, 2005)

That means a lot to me


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## mdnky (Aug 23, 2005)

The file was compressed for easier downloading & transfers.  It's a very common thing to do and perfectly harmless, at least this time around.


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## delsoljb32 (Aug 23, 2005)

cool!


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## Perseus (Aug 23, 2005)

I don't understand, what is making this ASCII thing potentially dangerous?


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 23, 2005)

Nothing -- nothing at all.  He was just worried that a 400k file expanded into a 4.4MB html file.

Besides, in this day and age, it's always a good idea to be cautious whenever you encounter something like, "Take a look at this webpage -- it's really cool!" because of trojans and viruses.

This one's safe, though.


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## Perseus (Aug 23, 2005)

OOOh ok. Didn't mean to pose any threat. I have been on this site long enough so I wouldn't post some link with a virus or anything.


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## MrNivit1 (Aug 23, 2005)

How would one make such art? It isn't coded by hand is it (if it is, WOW, that's a lot of work)?


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## Lt Major Burns (Aug 23, 2005)

my cousin (MSc Electronic engineering and computer sciences) reckons Mplayer


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## mdnky (Aug 23, 2005)

AALib or a similar program most likely.

Brings back memories of the old days of surfing the web and dialing into private BBSs, door games (L.O.R.D), etc.  This would have went over real well back then.

If you want to see some others (ASCII movies), check out this site.  They have a few of these, all done by this same guy (Mic Barendsz), from various movies.  The links below are from a few (some movies have multiple scenes).


Spideman
Hulk
Nemo
X-Men
Terminator
iRobot


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## Perseus (Aug 23, 2005)

Yeah, I still think the Star Wars one will always be a classic! Remember that one?


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## sirstaunch (Aug 23, 2005)

Perseus said:
			
		

> OOOh ok. Didn't mean to pose any threat. I have been on this site long enough so I wouldn't post some link with a virus or anything.



That's ok, I panic when the phone rings LOL



			
				ElDiabloConCaca said:
			
		

> Nothing -- nothing at all. He was just worried that a 400k file expanded into a 4.4MB html file.
> 
> Besides, in this day and age, it's always a good idea to be cautious whenever you encounter something like, "Take a look at this webpage -- it's really cool!" because of trojans and viruses.
> 
> This one's safe, though.



Exactly rite. With a big discussion on the board about OSX viruses there is a potential some spammer could target here and post something threatening. 

If I don't know an Email, I won't open it, or follow any links it provides because of Viruses Insecurity Spyware Trojans Adaware (VISTA  ::ha:: )And I won't pass the email onto any of my (especially Windows) friends. So I felt it a duty to notify this board to be cautious and the panic was over nothing anyhow   

I guess I should of looked under Perseus name and read how long he's been a member, how many post etc and decide if I feel comfortable with the linked file or not.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 23, 2005)

If you want to see how it was made, well, it's a plain-text HTML file (as all HTML files are).  Simply open it in your favorite text editor and you can view the source code for free.

It looks like they used some program to convert a movie clip into a series of ascii pictures, then simply animated them.  I remember a program like this back when private BBSs were popular (before the internet was available to home users) and we were all designing ASCII and ANSI art in a program called "TheDraw."


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