About

Project PETSCII, or simply PET-SCII, is a series of pet portraits rendered in PETSCII. Portraits are created by Ben Sisto, an artist based in Providence, R.I., USA. Each is paired with a link to an organization dedicated to animal welfare.

To request a portrait, email Ben at ben.sisto@gmail.com.

About PETSCII (from Wikipedia)

PETSCII (PET Standard Code of Information Interchange), also known as CBM ASCII, is the character set used in Commodore Business Machines' 8-bit home computers. The character set was largely designed by Leonard Tramiel (the son of Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel) and PET designer Chuck Peddle in 1977.

Process Notes

The Commodore PET had a resolution of 320 x 200, with each character requiring 8 blocks, resulting in an actual display of 40x25 characters. Submitted images are converted to black & white, scaled down to 40x25 pixels, and then imported to a web-based PETSCII editor. The translated image then gets a little hand retouching to help with contrast and definition. They are exported as PNG files.

Portrait Gallery