ACiD Productions (ACiD) is a

digital art Digital art, or the digital arts, is artistic work that uses Digital electronics, digital technology as part of the creative or presentational process. It can also refer to computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960 ...

group. Founded in 1990, the group originally specialized in ANSI artwork for

bulletin board system A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running list of BBS software, software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user perfor ...

s (BBS). More recently, they have extended their reach into other graphical media and

computer software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

development. During the BBS-era, their biggest competitor was iCE Advertisements.Hargadon, Michael A.
Like City Lights, Receding: ANSi Artwork and the Digital Underground, 1985-2000
" ''Concordia University'', 2011-03-18. Retrieved 2011-10-18.

History

ACiD Productions was founded in 1990 as ANSI Creators in Demand by five members:

RaD Man __NOTOC__ Christian Wirth (born in the 1970s), better known by the pseudonym RaD Man, is an American computer artist and historian. He works in the field of ANSI art, a method of creating art using a limited set of text characters and color e ...

, Shadow Demon, Grimm, The Beholder, and Phantom. Their work originally concentrated in

ANSI The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private nonprofit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organiz ...

and

ASCII art ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable (from a total of 128) character (computing), characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCI ...

, but the group later branched out into other artistic media such as tracker music, demo coding, and multimedia

software development Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

(e.g., image viewers). Membership rose from five members in 1990 to well over seven hundred by 2003.ACiD-100 All-time memberlist
(1990–2003) In the mid-1990s, ACiD created subsidiary groups responsible for these broader areas. For example, Remorse is the official ACiD sub-label responsible for ASCII art and other

text-based In computing, text-based user interfaces (TUI) (alternately terminal user interfaces, to reflect a dependence upon the properties of computer terminals and not just text), is a retronym describing a type of user interface (UI) common as an ear ...

graphics. Similarly, pHluid is responsible for module tracking and music production, and ACiDic handles bulletin board software modification and enhancement. Following the post dial-up BBS era, ACiD focused largely on the preservation of

history,

talk radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. They may feature monologues, dialogues between the hosts, Interview (jo ...

news, the sale of their

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

-based artscene archives, and sponsorship of demoparties. In 2008, the

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

gallery 20 goto 10 featured an exhibit of ACiD artists Somms and Lord Jazz. In 2013, members from ACiD collaborated with 21st century ANSI art collective Blocktronics to produce "Blocktronics ACiD Trip", a scrolling ANSI measuring lines tall. This ANSI artwork debuted at Demosplash at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

where it was awarded first place in the ANSI and ASCII category.

Works

ACiD has produced a variety of well-received works and services. A select list follows:

Demos Demos may refer to: Computing * DEMOS, a Soviet Unix-like operating system * DEMOS (ISP), the first internet service provider in the USSR * Demos Commander, an Orthodox File Manager for Unix-like systems * Plural for Demo (computer programming ...

* "Out of Sight, Out of Mind"

Image viewer An image viewer or image browser is a computer program that can display stored graphical images; it can often handle various graphics file formats. Such software usually renders the image according to properties of the display such as color depth ...
s

* ACiD View * SimpleXB * RemorseView

Image editor Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they are Digital photography, digital photographs, traditional Photographic processing, photo-chemical photographs, or illustrations. Traditional analog image editing is known ...
s

* ACiDDraw * Empathy * PabloDraw

Metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

protocols Protocol may refer to: Sociology and politics * Protocol (politics), a formal agreement between nation states * Protocol (diplomacy), the etiquette of diplomacy and affairs of state * Etiquette, a code of personal behavior Science and technology ...
and
binary Binary may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two values (0 and 1) for each digit * Binary function, a function that takes two arguments * Binary operation, a mathematical op ...
image standard

SAUCE In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi- solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavour, texture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French wor ...

* XBin

Music disks

* pHluid

Disk magazines Disc or disk may refer to: * Disk (mathematics), a two dimensional shape, the interior of a circle * Disk storage * Optical disc * Floppy disk Music * Disc (band), an American experimental music band * ''Disk'' (album), a 1995 EP by Moby Other ...

* ''The Product'' * ''Lancelot II'' * ''ACiDnews''

Radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...
programming

* The ARTS (

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the te ...

) * pHluid Radio (music) * ACiD Radio (music)

References

External links

* {{official website, http://www.acid.org, name=ACiD Productions Artscene groups Bulletin board systems Chiptune and tracker musicians American artist groups and collectives Arts organizations established in 1990 Computer-related introductions in 1990 Internet properties established in 1990 1990 establishments in the United States