Home ›

Rock Your Webcam Like It's 1995

Feb 22, 2012  By Shawn Powers
 in

Many Webcam applications exist for Linux. If you want to play with self-portraits, there's Cheese. If you want to set up a security system in your office, there's Motion. But, if you just want to have some fun, give HasciiCam a try.

HasciiCam does for Webcams what aalib+mplayer does for video files. It renders your live video directly into ASCII. It also has a feature to create a live Web feed of your ASCII video for the whole world to see! HasciiCam might not be the most practical application to use with your Webcam, but if you ever have been fascinated with ASCII art, it might be the most fun. It's most likely packaged with your favorite distro, but if not, the source is available from its Web site: http://dyne.org/software/hasciicam.

______________________

Shawn Powers is an Associate Editor for Linux Journal. You might find him chatting on the IRC channel, or Twitter

Comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Short, but you hit the spot!

Rasmus van Guido's picture
Submitted by Rasmus van Guido (not verified) on Thu, 03/29/2012 - 10:36.

I don't know but for some reason my 4-year-old daughter love it - and so do I. Thanks!

haha ... I love the tittle,

Learn to fly's picture
Submitted by Learn to fly (not verified) on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 10:04.

haha ... I love the tittle, great article by the way

The festival of colors

mmorsanj's picture
Submitted by mmorsanj on Tue, 02/28/2012 - 23:47.

The festival of colors and gifts go hand in hand as every Indian festival finds completion in gifts exchanging.

holi messages | sweet wishes

Using mplayer

PePa's picture
Submitted by PePa (not verified) on Sun, 02/26/2012 - 09:00.

You could also use mplayer for this:

mplayer -tv driver=v4l2 -vo caca tv://

Fun

slackjaw's picture
Submitted by slackjaw (not verified) on Fri, 02/24/2012 - 06:46.

Fun

Webcast
More Resources
How to Build an Optimal Hadoop Cluster to Store and Maintain Unlimited Amounts of Data Using Microservers

Realizing the promise of Apache® Hadoop® requires the effective deployment of compute, memory, storage and networking to achieve optimal results. With its flexibility and multitude of options, it is easy to over or under provision the server infrastructure, resulting in poor performance and high TCO. Join us for an in depth, technical discussion with industry experts from leading Hadoop and server companies who will provide insights into the key considerations for designing and deploying an optimal Hadoop cluster.

Learn More

Sponsored by AMD

White Paper
More Resources
Private PaaS for the Agile Enterprise

If you already use virtualized infrastructure, you are well on your way to leveraging the power of the cloud. Virtualization offers the promise of limitless resources, but how do you manage that scalability when your DevOps team doesn’t scale? In today’s hypercompetitive markets, fast results can make a difference between leading the pack vs. obsolescence. Organizations need more benefits from cloud computing than just raw resources. They need agility, flexibility, convenience, ROI, and control.

Stackato private Platform-as-a-Service technology from ActiveState extends your private cloud infrastructure by creating a private PaaS to provide on-demand availability, flexibility, control, and ultimately, faster time-to-market for your enterprise.

Learn More

Sponsored by ActiveState