Characters drawn with characters.
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII_art
notes
On auto-generating ascii art…
Mplayer AALIB support: http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/h/4441
sudo install aalib
To install mplayer in macports:
sudo port install mplayer-devel
To watch a ‘normal video’
mplayer video1.avi
To watch an “ascii video”
mplayer -vo aa video1.avi
So far have not been able to get aalib running with mplayer in macports. Here’s how it works in linux: http://jamsubuntu.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-to-watch-any-video-in-ascii.html