Show HN: Asciilator.com

(asciilator.com)

22 points | by 4m1rk 2 days ago

13 comments

  • dmd 2 days ago
    I'm not sure I understand the appeal of sites that are literally a less-than-a-sentence prompt I could have typed myself.
    • dwaltrip 2 days ago
      But you didn't, and they did :)

      It made me smile, I'm glad they built it.

      • dmd 2 days ago
        Well, no, I have many times typed exactly that prompt, because making a hundred billion dollars worth of computer go "brr" to make ascii art is amusing! I just don't understand what the point is of a dedicated site.
    • 4m1rk 2 days ago
      Even the UI is created by AI :bushes:
  • voidofpasswords 1 day ago
    tried with `goldfish`

               _.-=-._       
            .-`  '---`  '-.   
          /      .-"-.     \  
         |     /  _  \     |  
          \    \ (_) /    /   
           '-._ '-=-'_.-'     
                '---'         
     
    im not sure what this is
  • cadamsdotcom 2 days ago
    Life is complete, I now have a beautiful 2D ascii elephant!

    Random idea: now animate it.

    Run the initial generate, keep that result, provide it back to another llm call: “user requested an elephant. you drew this. (object here) generate the next frame of an animation of this.”

    Iterate the prompt 2-3 times for cool animated ascii art :)

    • 4m1rk 2 days ago
      I like that! Though it's not very smart or consistent at creating ascii art.
  • dwaltrip 2 days ago
    Object: pizza pie

           _      
         _|=|__________
        /              \
       /                \
      /__________________\
      |   ________   ___ |
      |  |      |  |   ||
      |  |      |  |   ||
      |  |      |  |   ||
      |  |      |  |   ||
      |  |      |  |   ||
      |  |      |  |   ||
      |  |______|  |___||
      |_________________|
         ( )      ( )
        (   )    (   )
          ( )    ( )
    
    
    A flying house?? Very curious!
    • 4m1rk 2 days ago
      It was too excited ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • 1024kb 1 day ago
    Looking at some of the popular suggestions, it can't help with some words, because they are too rude, however, "pen is" returns something rather long.
  • mysterydip 2 days ago
    Not quite sure it's working properly. Just saw a shrek face labeled "pikachu", and a column with nothing else labeled "windmill".
    • 4m1rk 2 days ago
      Yeah, it sometimes doesn't feel like it. I tried different prompts but it's not that smart at generating ascii art.
  • Simorgh 2 days ago
    Is it using a model to generate the ASCII art?

    It’s quite clever.

    • 4m1rk 2 days ago
      It's gpt-4.1
      • Simorgh 2 days ago
        Got it — it’s interesting how a text model can generate compelling visual representations that are essentially style-matching.

        Matching styles using vision models is not that easy, especially if you want to capture the core subject of the prompt.

  • shibeprime 2 days ago
    Lmao, its so random.

    ASCII Art for "bambi":

             ,   ,
            /////|
           ///// |
          /////  |
         |~~~| | |
         |===| |/|
         | B |/| |
         | A / | |
         | M |  |
         | B |  |
         | I | /
         |===|/
         '---'
        /     \
       /       \
      /  .-""-. \
     (  /      \ )
      \/        \/
       |        |
       |        |
       |        |
       |        |
       |        |
       |        |
       |        |
       |        |
       |        |
       |        |
       |        |
      /          \
     /            \
    / \
    • 4m1rk 2 days ago
      I'm curious too. Should've make it explain why it generated what generated and as a note :D
  • 4m1rk 2 days ago
    Created using FastAPI and HTMX.
  • Ayushmishra23 2 days ago
    cool
  • b0dhimind 2 days ago

           ___
         _/   \_
        /       \
       |         |
       |         |
       |         |
        \_______/
          /   \
         /     \
        /       \
       /         \
      /           \
      |   ___     |
      |  (___)    |
      |           |
       \         /
        \_______/