[HN Gopher] Show HN: ASCII Drawing Board
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       Show HN: ASCII Drawing Board
        
       I've made an ASCII drawing board. You can set any brush, canvas
       size, export art as a text file.  I want to keep it as
       manual/analog as possible, hence there is no tool for converting
       image to ASCII.  Prompting LLMs to draw ASCII art turned out to be
       a difficult task _. So instead I decided to ask it make a drawing
       board. Wihtout coding agent I wouldn 't even try myself. Although
       it is an interesting task, it would drift me away.  Basically it's
       just a drawing board with endless variations of textures and
       brushes: when you make large canvas and zoom out you don't see
       ASCII anymore, but textured drawing. E.g. this is a cat:
       https://x.com/delopsu_com/status/1971726204073136219, brush used: "
       ".  I would appreciate if you could give it a try and tell your
       people about it, if it's something that may be of their interest.
       Also please give any feedback here or on X.  _ turns out there is
       already (or is emerging) ASCII benchmark for LLMs.
        
       Author : delopsu
       Score  : 51 points
       Date   : 2025-10-05 15:36 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.delopsu.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.delopsu.com)
        
       | DamonHD wrote:
       | Would much prefer it to start with just printable ASCII
       | characters in the brush (32--126) from which the output would
       | work in more places and would be in better alignment with the
       | name.
       | 
       | Having said that, yes, fun and interesting, thank you...
        
         | delopsu wrote:
         | Thank you for trying it and for the feedback! Glad you liked
         | it!
         | 
         | > start with just printable ASCII characters in the brush
         | 
         | Yes. I started like this. But then set these fancy characters
         | by default to show the capabilities, because those who are
         | familiar with the concept know the possibilities, but those who
         | don't know could think that it's limited and not notice wide
         | limits.
        
       | delopsu wrote:
       | It's a shame that I haven't read text above after posting (only
       | in Edit mode).
       | 
       | I used asterisk after "difficult task" and in the footer -- all
       | between became italic. And also brush was cleaned out.
        
       | jbentley1 wrote:
       | I'm going to use this for all of my Slack replies
        
         | delopsu wrote:
         | Aha, thank you!
        
       | atum47 wrote:
       | It could work on mobile if you work a little bit on it. Right now
       | touch is dragging the screen
        
         | delopsu wrote:
         | Oh, yes, forgot about it. On tablet it could be pretty
         | convenient to use, if it works. Thank you!
        
           | firasan wrote:
           | On my iPad, the vertical movements seem to trigger the page
           | scroll
        
             | delopsu wrote:
             | Thank you, working on it at the moment.
        
             | delopsu wrote:
             | I've pushed a simple fix.
             | 
             | It allows to draw on touch devices (with interesting
             | effects with multi-touch). But one can stuck at the center
             | of the canvas. If it happens -- tap the header of the
             | browser to scroll back to top.
             | 
             | Could you please try it again?
             | 
             | Thinking about more elegant solution.
        
               | firasan wrote:
               | Much better now. Thanks for fixing it!
        
               | delopsu wrote:
               | Thank you!
        
       | arkensaw wrote:
       | This is such a great idea, well done. Congrats!
        
         | delopsu wrote:
         | Thank you!
        
       | teddyh wrote:
       | emacs M-x artist-mode
        
         | delopsu wrote:
         | TIL :)
        
       | matt3210 wrote:
       | > So instead I decided to ask it make a drawing board
       | 
       | Very nice. Congrats to the coding agent which made this. Needs an
       | undo button though!
        
         | delopsu wrote:
         | Passed it. Here is the reponse:
         | 
         | > Love to hear that -- thank you for sharing!
         | 
         | Not sure about Undo -- part of me wants to keep it hardcore.
         | Like with real ink.
        
       | janwillemb wrote:
       | Doesn't seem to work on Firefox mobile. On each stroke it only
       | renders one "point".
        
         | delopsu wrote:
         | Hm. What OS do you use? It works fine (for me) in Firefox on
         | iOS. Haven't tested on Android.
        
           | 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
           | For me, Firefox on Android, I get this:
           | 
           | One stroke draws one spot at the starting point. Any number
           | of further strokes draw nothing. When I tap outside the
           | canvas I can draw one more point
        
             | delopsu wrote:
             | Could you please try it now? Pushed a fix, but have no
             | Android to test it.
        
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       (page generated 2025-10-05 23:00 UTC)