I chose graphics as the topic for the challenge. I will create different versions of the same picture using different techniques, maybe different computers. The picture is my tattoo, a double snake in an infinity style loop. It’s a popular Scandinavian theme from the iron age, Merovingian or Viking design. I drew it about 25 years ago from an arcaeology book to give to the tattoo artist as reference and due to sheer luck or my mad archival skills, I was able to find the drawing.
Today I started with doing a small solid ASCII art version of it on Amiga 500. I have never really done any ASCII art, just some PETSCII graphics on Commodore 64, so this is all new to me.
The preparations took some time, I had initially thought to use MicroEmacs but could not find an overwrite functionality on it, so I dug into my old diskette box and found that Cygnus Edit has that feature. After finding a good text editor, the next thing to do was to create a small proof-of-concept, making sure that I can transfer a text file from Amiga to my more modern computer. My Amiga does not have a network interface and the only way to transfer stuff in and out is through ADF disk images on a USB drive that can be connected to my Mac and to the Amiga’s Gotek floppy emulator. That went well, I found Unarchiver for the Mac, which can extract files from ADF disk images, and now anything I draw on Amiga, I can get out of it.
I first had a little mishap when I started preparing for the first drawing. I was used to working with Commodore 64 graphics and it has 8x8 pixel square-shaped characters. So I sketched the image on a squared paper and soon was reminded that Amiga system font and any font I would be using on my Mac to to view the picture, has different proportions. To make things easier I just doubled the width and found out that it did not come out too distorted.
I drew the first experiment on solid ASCII, using the basic antialiasing tricks I learned from Solid’s tutorial:
https://www.roysac.com/tutorial/asciiarttutorial.html
And here is the small version I managed to get done today:
Pnooood88bn._ pv _.od88bnnnnoY
>8888888888n. .o8888888888<
YP*"" ""Y888b.,d888P"" ""*YP
,od888888b."Y888888P".d888888bn.
d88888888888b.Y8888P.d88888888888b
d888P*""*Y8888888PY8888888P*""*Y888b
8888 ">8888< >8888<" 8888
Y888bn._,od888888bd888888bn._,od888P
Y888888888P*"Y888888P"*Y888888888P
.""*Y888P" _od888888bn_ "Y888P*"",
^bn.___,od8888P""Y8888bn.___,od^
"Y88888P*" "*Y88888P"
The next step will be to double the size and try to cram more details into the picture, but that will be tomorrow’s job.
Old Computer Challenge 2026 posts
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pv@smolpub.mail.kapsi.fi