ascii-ansi-art
16colo.rs (ANSI/ASCII art)
An archive of ANSI and ASCII artpacks from the BBS artscene, with material going back to the early 1990s. A keyless API is advertised, but our probe of it failed, so we link to the site's own browsing and search. The primary home of preserved BBS-era artwork; reach for it when researching the artscene or locating a specific artpack.
No programmatic check, opens the archive’s own search.
Why it’s useful & how it works
The definitive home of preserved BBS-era ANSI and ASCII art, holding packs released by artscene groups from the early 1990s right through to the present. It is the first place to look when researching textmode artwork, a specific artist group such as ACiD or iCE, or the history of the BBS artscene. The site lets you browse by art group, by year, and by individual file, and has a keyword search. Echo links you there so you can run the search and browse directly on the site.
What’s inside
Thousands of artpacks from the 1990s to the present day, representing the work of hundreds of art groups and spanning multiple textmode formats including ANSI, ASCII, and RIP.
API access
https://16colo.rs/api/ (keyless; my probe path 404'd)
What we measured
Our own probes, not the archive’s own claims. Re-run periodically; every reading below is dated.
Reachability
- Direct request
- Responded HTTP 200 132 ms
- Through a datacenter proxy
- Responded HTTP 200 833 ms
- API, direct
- Not found HTTP 404 159 ms
- API, through a proxy
- Not found HTTP 404 913 ms
Reachability measured 2026-08-22.
Access
Freely reachable, no key, login, or captcha.