If anyone is interested in the history of digital art, check out these
pages.

http://artpacks.acid.org/www/html/intro.html
http://www.ice.org/HighBandwidth/aboutice.html

Yes, these groups were made up of mostly nerdy teens in the late 80's
and 90's, but they were sending art through their modems when 1200 baud
was still considered fast. I hope that the history books remember these
people, as their story is as rich as the Renaissance and could fill a
thousand pages.

These artists lived in a different world, where art was a commodity more
valuable than money, and the highest status was bestowed by artists. The
underground art "scene" was very complicated w/ systems of legal and
illegal trade, "elite" membership organizations of art groups and online
BBS's, as well as power struggles with alliances, mergers, private
conferences and secret communications networks.

The two main groups that were doing online computer graphics before
anyone else were ACiD and iCE. The reason few people know about these
groups – most of what was going on was illegal – the promotion of
software piracy.

So next time you click on your fancy Photoshop and say the words "new
media" – remember those before you made art one pixel or ASCII
character at a time.