.... The Dyne.org Foundation presents RASTASOFT's

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                [ (h)ascii for the masses! ]

                                                 version 1.1.1

Hasciicam makes it possible to have live ascii video on the web. It captures video from a tv card and renders it into ascii, formatting the output into an html page with a refresh tag or in a live ascii window or in a simple text file as well, giving the possiblity to anybody that has a bttv card. a linux box and a cheap modem line to show a live asciivideo feed that can be browsable without any need for plugin, java etc.

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INSTALLATION

On Debian and Ubuntu you have hasciicam packages ready to install

sudo apt-get install hasciicam

On RedHat and derivatives a package may be available too.

USAGE

This software is operated from a terminal... and invites you to enjoy the aesthetics of it :^)

To have a brief list of command line options, use:

hasciicam -h

To see the manual:

man hasciicam

BUILD FROM SOURCE

If you want to compile hasciicam from its source code, you will need aalib: that's the great lib that makes possible ascii rendering if your distribution does'nt includes it, you can fetch it from the hasciicam webpage.

To compile the sourcecode:

 autoreconf -i && ./configure && make

and to install it, you can use

 make install

Running it:

people reported success with several pci and usb devices, refer to video4linux documentation for further informations

CREDITS

Hasciicam is designed, written and maintained by jaromil - http://rastasoft.org

People who contributed to the hasciicam project:

• jan hubicka and the aalib crew - the asci rendering library
• gerd knorr - grab was inspired by his webcam sourcecode
• mathop aka josto - help on css with style
• august black - hacks for iomegabuz
• boffh - hacks for usb cams
• martin guy - karma to avoid buffer overflows
• rat - text dump
• pbm & megabug - watching ascii horizons
• rapid - security and bugfixes
• alessandro preite martinez - sgi irix support (0.9)
• thomas pfau - ftp library
• blended - wider webcam support
• dan stowell - v4l2 api support

Special thanks to:

• LOA hacklab milano for donating a pentium100mhz development box
• hell voyager for donating an hauppage bttv brooktree card which made it possible to have releases :) )
• acme + rasty + martinez for very good vibez!
• servus.at, maddler.net, flyinglinux.net, autistici.org high quality bandwidth lets people get slashdotted!
• FREAKNET medialab catania :: http://freaknet.org for knowledge, place, sun and connectivity under the vulcano!

LICENSE

This source code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This source code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Please refer to the GNU Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Public License along with this source code; if not, write to: Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.