These are VT100 Animation files, which are meant to be thrown up raw at a
vt100-compatible terminal. ANSI-ready terminals should do fine, although the
ideal venue is a Digital Equipment Corporation VT100 Terminal connected at 9600
baud. Many of these animations will fly by at modern speeds, when they were
meant to move much slower. The files themselves are simply text with cursor
movement instructions, deleting and erasing the characters necessary to appear
animated. Usually, they represent a long hand-crafted process done by a single
person to tell a story. Some of these files may date back to the 1960's and
1970's.

WWW: http://artscene.textfiles.com/vt100/