For those of you who might want to view ANSI art as it was originally intended, you may find yourself frustrated at the apparent lack of support in later versions of Windows (2000, NT, XP etc). Simply typing the files in a DOS window will result in an off-colour mess, as neither the font nor the palette is in fact the same as what was used in the golden age of BBSes. The most practical solution is to get yourself a copy of ACiDView 6 (google for it), which is made specifically for Windows OSes. All this is fairly obvious, and wouldn't usually warrant noding, except for this one thing... the key sequence to use the authentic 9-pixel width characters is undocumented! When viewing an ANSI, simply hit CTRL-ALT-9 and you're set. Fiddle with the font settings for increased accuracy. Enjoy the classics as they were meant to be viewed!

You know, the sad fact is that it took me months of effort to figure out how to do this as part of my quest to convert old favourites to a more modern format. I had to get the dope straight from RaD MaN (leet!). Luckily ACiDView also converts ANSI with ease into .png - now that's convenient.