http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Standard_Code_for_Information_Interchange
ASCII art is an artistic medium that relies primarily on computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable (from a total of 128) characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1967 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters (beyond the 128 characters of the 7-bit standard ASCII). The term is also loosely used to refer to text based art in general. ASCII art can be created with any text editor, and is often used with free-form languages. Most examples of ASCII art require a fixed-width font (non-proportional fonts, like on a traditional typewriter) such as Courier for presentation.
ASCII art had been originally developed around 1966, by computer-art pioneer Kenneth Knowlton, who was working for Bell Labs at the time.[1] “Studies in Perception I” by Ken Knowlton and Leon Harmon from 1966 shows some examples of their early ASCII art
___ _____ ______________ ____ ____ ______
/ _ | / ___// ____/ _/ _/ / _ | / __ \/_ __/
/ /_| | \__ \/ / / / / / / /_| | / /_/ / / /
/ /__| | __/ / /___ / / / / / /__| |/ / / / / /
/_/ |_/____/\____/___/___/ /_/ |_/_/ |_| /_/
"Oldskool" or "Amiga" style
o$ $o
.o$$$$o. .o$$$$o .s$$$$$o.' `".o$$$$$o..o$$$$$o.o$$$$$o.
.o `$.$$' . o$ $"'.o $$ .o `$. .o `$$ $$
.o$$.o$$$`"$$$o. $$ . $$ $$ .o$$.o$$$ $$"o$" $$
$$ $$ `$$ $$. $o.$$ $$ $$ $$ $$ $$. $$
$' $'.o$$$$' `$$$$$$o.' $$ $' $' $$ $$$" `$
$' $' $"
"Newskool" style
▄ ▄█▄ █▄ ▄
▄█▀█▓ ▄▓▀▀█▀ ▀▀▀█▓▀▀ ▀▀ ▄█▀█▓▀▀▀▀▀▓▄▀██▀▀
██ ██ ▀██▄▄ ▄█ ▀ ░▒ ░▒ ██ ██ ▄█▄ █▀ ██
█▓▄▀██ ▄ ▀█▌▓█ ▒▓ ▒▓ █▓▄▀██ ▓█ ▀▄ █▓
█▒ █▓ ██▄▓▀ ▀█▄▄█▄▓█ ▓█ █▒ █▓ ▒█ ▓█▄ ▒
▀▒ ▀ ▀ █▀ ▀▒ ▀ █▀ ░
"Block" or "High ASCII" style_
