Published on : 2026-05-04 11:33
       
       Following up on my previous post about gemtext tables:
       
 (DIR) Gemtext Tables, No HTML Required
       
       Sometimes, when I have absolutely nothing to do, I play with ASCII 
       characters in vim. Today I made an ASCII chess board with black 
       and white chess pieces. I'm pretty sure I'm not the first one to 
       make an ascii chessboard and I won't be the last. I thought it 
       looks pretty nice so I wanted to share it on my blog.
       
                A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H
              ┏━━━┯━━━┯━━━┯━━━┯━━━┯━━━┯━━━┯━━━┓
            8 ┃ ♜ │ ♞ │ ♝ │ ♛ │ ♚ │ ♝ │ ♞ │ ♜ ┃ 8
              ┠───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┨
            7 ┃ ♟ │ ♟ │ ♟ │ ♟ │ ♟ │ ♟ │ ♟ │ ♟ ┃ 7
              ┠───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┨
            6 ┃   │   │   │   │   │   │   │   ┃ 6
              ┠───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┨
            5 ┃   │   │   │   │   │   │   │   ┃ 5
              ┠───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┨
            4 ┃   │   │   │   │   │   │   │   ┃ 4
              ┠───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┨
            3 ┃   │   │   │   │   │   │   │   ┃ 3
              ┠───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┨
            2 ┃ ♙ │ ♙ │ ♙ │ ♙ │ ♙ │ ♙ │ ♙ │ ♙ ┃ 2
              ┠───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┨
            1 ┃ ♖ │ ♘ │ ♗ │ ♕ │ ♔ │ ♗ │ ♘ │ ♖ ┃ 1
              ┗━━━┷━━━┷━━━┷━━━┷━━━┷━━━┷━━━┷━━━┛
                A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H
       
       
       Depending on the monospace font you have this might look good 
       or not :-)
       
       
       I did not really have a clever idea for alternating black and 
       white squares. I was thinking about bold borders for black squares 
       and thin borders for white squares but it didn't look good. 
       Do you have a better idea for an ASCII chess board ?
       
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