About
Scroll art is a form of computer-generated ASCII art that outputs text output in a command line terminal. After the terminal window fills, it begins to scroll the text upwards, creating an animated effect. These programs are simple, endless, and beautiful. But they are also accessible as programming projects for beginners.
The ScrAM is a online collection of several scroll art examples curated by Al Sweigart.
There are two limitations to scroll art:
- Program output is limited to text characters (though this includes emoji).
- Once outputted, text cannot be erased. It can only scroll up.
These restrictions compel creativity. Scroll art apps need only a minimal amount of programming experience. Every programming language can output text, so scroll art can be written in any programming language without requiring additional software libraries.
Scroll art is an idea not dependent on modern computing power. All of the scroll art at the ScrAM could be recreated on personal computers from the 1970s and 1980s. The 20 GOTO 10 program in BASIC can be considered an example of scroll art.
About the Artist
Al Sweigart coined the term "scroll art" and is the curator of the Scroll Art Museum. He has written several programming books for beginners, including Automate the Boring Stuff with Python and The Recursive Book of Recursion. All of his books are freely available under a Creative Commons license at https://inventwithpython.com. His The Big Book of Small Python Projects has several animated works, which he later expanded upon to create scroll art and the ScrAM.