BBS art, right in your terminal.

Decode classic ANSI, ansimation, ASCIImation, DDW, DIZ, ADF, RIPscrip, and XBin artwork from Rust, preview ZIP art packs, or view it as colored UTF-8, Kitty graphics, PNG, APNG, and GIF.

cargo install bbcat

bbs — 80×12

❯bbcat DEMO.ANS --kitty

  ░▒▓██████╗ ██████╗  ██████╗ █████╗ ████████╗▓▒░
     ██╔══██╗██╔══██╗██╔════╝██╔══██╗╚══██╔══╝
     ██████╔╝██████╔╝██║     ███████║   ██║
     ██╔══██╗██╔══██╗██║     ██╔══██║   ██║
     ██████╔╝██████╔╝╚██████╗██║  ██║   ██║
     ╚═════╝ ╚═════╝  ╚═════╝╚═╝  ╚═╝   ╚═╝

  ANSI · XBIN · ADF · RIP · CP437
❯_

read the docs get macOS app download .deb view source find artwork

01 / DEFAULT

Colored UTF-8

Pipe it, page it, or play ansimation at selectable baud rates. CP437 becomes Unicode with colored ANSI output.

02 / PIXEL PERFECT

Kitty graphics

Preserve bitmap fonts and palettes in Kitty, Ghostty, and iTerm2.

03 / EXPORT

PNG, APNG, and GIF

Turn supported BBS formats into indexed-color PNG files, or preserve ANSI and DDW animation frames in looping APNG or GIF files—without a runtime dependency.

Native macOS app

Classic artwork, at home on your Mac.

bbcat for macOS uses the same Rust renderer in a native AppKit viewer, with timed ANSI animation, SAUCE metadata, crisp ×1 and ×2 display, Finder thumbnails, and full Quick Look previews. Ready-to-use builds support Apple silicon Macs running macOS 13 or newer.

Download latest release View bbcat-mac source

Supported formats .ANS.DIZ.ASC.NFO.MEM.TXT.DDW.ADF.RIP.XB.ZIP