Use quarter size ascii blocks (the conway's game of life type)

[coolaj86]

You could use the "Conway's Game of Life" ASCII character set: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Elements#Compact_table

| ▌| ▐ | ▖ | ▗ | ▘ | ▙ | ▚ | ▛ | ▜ | ▝ | ▞ | ▟ | █ | ▄ | ▀ |

• ▀ upper half block
• ▄ lower half block
• ▐ right half block (renders incorrectly on github if not in code block)
• ▌ left half block (same as above)
• █ whole block
•   empty block (em quad shown since github doesn't show spaces in empty inline code blocks)
• ▞ ▚ the two kitty-corner quadrants
• ▗ ▘ ▝ ▖ the four exclusive corner quadrants
• ▙ ▛ ▜ ▟ the four inclusive corner quadrants

▐ ▖▗▘▙▚▛▜▝▞▟█▄▀▌
▐ ▖▗▘▙▚▛▜▝▞▟█▄▀▌

Note: the terminal won't have the gap.

[coolaj86]

Turns out that double half and whole blocks are the solution, not the quarter blocks.