About These Packs
Most ANSI and LIT groups of the BBS era included "viewers" (small programs which would display their ANSI artwork) in their packs. Neither The Stranger nor myself had any inkling on how to program such a thing. The first SAZ packs were released without a viewer at all -- readers were instructed to simply type the programs out from a DOS prompt (remember, this was 1994). Our first attempt at a viewer was a batch file menu system I put together that barely worked better than it looked, and it looked terrible. Eventually, a fellow modemer named Mr. Spock felt so sorry for us that he programmed SAZ View, our very own viewer. SAZ View displayed our lits, played music, and legitimized our group.
Unfortunately, time has not been kind to our viewer. SAZ View uses memory tricks not supported in newer versions of Windows, so getting our old viewer to run on any modern OS takes quite a bit of tweaking and configuring of now-ancient memory modes. Typing out ANSI files at a DOS prompt is no simple matter any longer either, as ANSI is no longer loaded by default, and configuring one's computer to do so is a hassle.
The solution I decided on was to painstakingly convert the old SAZ ANSI files into graphic files through the use of a tool called PNGANS.EXE. Each lit was converted to a graphic file to preserve its original color and ANSI graphics -- what you're seeing here is essentially what people saw when these packs originally came out over a decade ago. The original packs and viewer are available for download as well, if you want to fiddle with trying to get them to work (I recommend DOSBox and some patience).
PLEASE KEEP IN MIND that these packs are 10+ years old. None of the BBS phone numbers or mailing addresses are still valid. Please do not harass the unfortunate people who inherited our old phone numbers and addresses. Both The Stranger and I (Jack Flack) can be reached via e-mail and/or snail mail -- just check under the "Alumni" file for our current contact information.