Many were amazed in 1999 when the Wachowski Brothers released "The Matrix" featuring Keanu Reeves as Neo, who found himself living in a virtual world where humans must fight sentient machines. It seems the idea hasn't lost its touch because another Matrix-related product is staying strong in spite of competition throughout the years: The fan-made American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) rendering of "The Matrix."
Torrentfreak reported on Sunday that the fan-made ASCII version of "The Matrix" began its circulation as a torrent in its site in December 2003, and that it has been active for 4,419 days, which is a rare feat especially since only a single seeder kept it alive for most of those days.
"To the best of our knowledge, this means that The Matrix ASCII is the oldest torrent that's still being actively shared," Torrentfreak wrote.
Before the latest update last Sunday, Torrentfreak already wrote about Matrix ASCII several times before: first when it was 696 days old, with a follow-up when it reached 778 days, next when it was 10 years old and still active, and then again in late 2015.
Take note, however, that this file is not "The Matrix" film, but an ASCII render of it. This explains why the entire film is green and has those characters making up everything instead of actual faces and things. This is because ASCII codes are a way for humans to communicate with computers since it can only understand numbers. The ASCII codes are the numerical equivalent of every letter or symbol.
It's also a good homage to the film's own credit sequence. Besides the fact that it has been downloaded, shared thousands of times and still going strong for 13 years, even after the site where it was originally shared has already shut down, is a testament of the appreciation for the fan's efforts.
