ANSI stands for the
American National Standards Institute. One of their standards includes the PC
character and
escape sequence set.
Using 1 of 16 colours for the foreground and 1 of 8 for the background of each char, especially those below, provides a limited but sufficient palette to draw
pictures. People drawing ansi have spawned the
art scene.
- 176, 177, and 178, which are the three "shaded" chars
- 219, the full char
- 220, 221, 222 and 223, the half-filled chars.