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          ░▒▓█ rapid1337.com █▓▒░           
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║  Drawing with Bones — a PETSCII Primer   ║
╟──────────────────────────────────────────╢
║ The Commodore character set as an art    ║
║ medium, and how to render it on the      ║
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║      ·· code/petscii-primer.html ··      ║
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============================================================================
Title ..: Drawing with Bones — a PETSCII Primer
Author .: kahvi
Section : Code
============================================================================


# Drawing with Bones

PETSCII is the Commodore character set: not just letters and digits but a
full
kit of box-drawing pieces, diagonals, shades and blobs, baked into the ROM
of
every PET, VIC-20 and C64. Artists turned that kit into a medium.

## The palette is the point

You get 16 colours and a grid. That is the entire toolbox, and it is enough:

.o0Oo.     hearts  spades  diags  shades
######     <3      <>      / \    : .. ::
`Oo0o`

Switch the **font** in the top bar to **Commodore 64 (PETSCII)** and the
page
re-renders in the genuine C64 ROM font — every glyph cell-aligned, exactly
as it
looked on a 1084 monitor. The ANSI renderer (and the effect box below) use
that
same selected font, so your art and your text stay pixel-true.

## Embers

Here is the framework's `fire` effect chewing on some text — set the font to
C64
or Atari first for the full séance:

<div class="fxtext" data-text="PETSCII LIVES" data-effect="fire" data-height="180"></div>

<script src="../assets/js/fx/fxtext.js"></script>

## Where to go next

The scene archive at 16colo.rs holds decades of PETSCII and ANSI packs.
Study
the masters, then open a grid and sign the bottom-right corner like you mean
it.


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