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Definition:

(Or "character graphics", "ASCII graphics") The fine art of drawing diagrams using the ASCII character set (mainly "|-/\+").

Here is a serious example: 

	   o----)||(--+--|<----+   +---------o + D O
	     L  )||(  |        |   |             C U
	   A I  )||(  +-->|-+  |   +-\/\/-+--o -   T
	   C N  )||(        |  |   |      |        P
	     E  )||(  +-->|-+--)---+--)|--+-o      U
	        )||(  |        |          | GND    T
	   o----)||(--+--|<----+----------+

	   A power supply consisting of a full wave rectifier
	   circuit feeding a capacitor input filter circuit

	                         Figure 1.
And here are some very silly examples: 
	   |\/\/\/|     ____/|              ___    |\_/|    ___
	   |      |     \ o.O|   ACK!      /   \_  |` '|  _/   \
	   |      |      =(_)=  THPHTH!   /      \/     \/      \
	   | (o)(o)        U             /                       \
	   C      _)  (__)                \/\/\/\  _____  /\/\/\/
	   | ,___|    (oo)                       \/     \/
	   |   /       \/-------\         U                  (__)
	  /____\        ||     | \    /---V  `v'-            oo )
	 /      \       ||---W||  *  * |--|   || |`.         |_/\

			//-o-\\
		 ____---=======---____
	     ====___\   /.. ..\   /___====      Klingons rule OK!
	   //        ---\__O__/---        \\
	   \_\                           /_/

					    _____
				    __...---'-----`---...__
			       _===============================
	  ,----------------._/'      `---..._______...---'
	  (_______________||_) . .  ,--'
	      /    /.---'         `/
	     '--------_- - - - - _/
		       `--------'

				   Figure 2.
There is an important subgenre of ASCII art that puns on the standard character names in the fashion of a rebus.

	 +--------------------------------------------------------+
	 |      ^^^^^^^^^^^^                                      |
	 | ^^^^^^^^^^^            ^^^^^^^^^                       |
	 |                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
	 |        ^^^^^^^         B       ^^^^^^^^^               |
	 |  ^^^^^^^^^          ^^^            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^      |
	 +--------------------------------------------------------+
		     "A Bee in the Carrot Patch"

	                       Figure 3.
Within humorous ASCII art, there is, for some reason, an entire flourishing subgenre of pictures of silly cows. One is shown in Figure 2; here are three more: 
		  (__)              (__)              (__)
		  (\/)              ($$)              (**)
	   /-------\/        /-------\/        /-------\/
	  / | 666 ||        / |=====||        / |     ||
	 *  ||----||       *  ||----||       *  ||----||
	    ~~    ~~          ~~    ~~          ~~    ~~
	  Satanic cow    This cow is a Yuppie   Cow in love

				  Figure 4.
http://gagme.wwa.com/~boba/scarecrow.html.