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  • Are We Sixel Yet?

    From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.misc on Wed Sep 17 09:29:43 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.misc

    Quite impressed to discover that a sixel graphics renaissance seems to
    be in progress <https://www.arewesixelyet.com/>.

    This is an old idea invented by DEC from the 1980s, for a terminal
    graphics mode that allowed for each line of characters to become 6
    rows of pixels (“six pixel” = “sixel”). A bit slow to send the resulting volume of data over a serial line, but modern network
    connections cope with it just fine. It was eclipsed by the advent of
    proper graphics terminals with more advanced display hardware,
    accessed via network connections, X11, OpenGL and all the rest of it.
    But now some folks are dusting off the old idea, and having some fun
    with it.

    Certainly a bit nicer than blocky character graphics.

    What use is it? Think of remote access via SSH, where you have a need
    for some basic ability to view graphics in your terminal emulator. The
    above site gives a roll call of terminal emulators, and their status
    of support (or not) for sixel graphics. Is yours in the list?
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  • From yeti@yeti@tilde.institute to comp.misc on Wed Sep 17 13:47:13 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.misc

    Sixel, ... what else?!?

    <https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=53880#p53880>

    Those snapshots would need to be updated. Chawan has improved a lot
    since then.
    --
    3. Hitchhiker 11: (65) On the way back they sang a number of tuneful and reflective songs on the subjects of peace, justice, morality, culture,
    sport, family life and the obliteration of all other life forms.
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  • From Ben Collver@bencollver@tilde.pink to comp.misc on Wed Sep 17 13:50:13 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.misc

    On 2025-09-17, Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
    Quite impressed to discover that a sixel graphics renaissance seems to
    be in progress <https://www.arewesixelyet.com/>.

    That web site gives a list of terminal emulators that support sixel
    graphics. I'd be interested in seeing a list of software that
    supports sixel graphics. Off the top of my head, i've used:

    * gnuplot
    https://sourceforge.net/p/gnuplot/patches/742/
    * chafa
    https://hpjansson.org/chafa/

    I have also used gnuplot with xterm's Tektronix 4014 emulation.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tektronix_4010
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  • From yeti@yeti@tilde.institute to comp.misc on Wed Sep 17 15:38:39 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.misc

    Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> wrote:

    I'd be interested in seeing a list of software that supports sixel
    graphics. Off the top of my head, i've used:

    I use 'img2sixel [-P]' a lot. Libsixel's README has pointers to other
    software too.

    <https://github.com/saitoha/libsixel>

    Eat adds even Sixels to GUI-Emacs' superpowers. Not as fast as
    Img2Sixel, but always better than no Sixels at all.

    Long ago I possibly stumbled over my own feet while trying to get the Sixel-Xserver built, that might be worth a retry, even if just for the
    giggles.

    If you plan an awesome-sixel-programs list, please consider Notabug,
    Codeberg, Tildegit or a similar friendly neighbour as its home.
    --
    3. Hitchhiker 31: (18) At least, if it wasn't real, it did support them,
    and as that is what sofas are supposed to do, this, by any test that
    mattered, was a real sofa.
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  • From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.misc on Wed Sep 17 22:24:01 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.misc

    On Wed, 17 Sep 2025 13:50:13 -0000 (UTC), Ben Collver wrote:

    That web site gives a list of terminal emulators that support sixel
    graphics. I'd be interested in seeing a list of software that supports
    sixel graphics.

    That’s less important, though, given the likely usage scenarios. This package <https://packages.debian.org/trixie/libsixel-bin> contains the img2sixel utility, which will convert various graphics formats to sixel.
    That is enough to display the result in a sixel-supporting terminal
    window.

    With that, there isn’t much need for the usual graphics software to output sixel format directly.
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