Question

When thanking someone, you don’t want to just send them an e-mail saying “Thanks!”, you want to have something FLASHY:

Input: THANKS!!
Output:
TTT H H AAA N N K K SSS !!! !!! 
 T  H H A A NNN K K S   !!! !!! 
 T  HHH AAA NNN KK  SSS !!! !!! 
 T  H H A A N N K K   S            
 T  H H A A N N K K SSS !!! !!! 

Write a program to generate a banner. You only have to generate upper-case A-Z along with spaces and exclamation points (what is a banner without an exclamation point?). All characters are made up of a 3×5 grid of the same character (so the S is a 3×5 grid made of S). All output should be on one row (so no newlines). Here are all the letters you need:

Input: ABCDEFGHIJKL
Output:
AAA BBB CCC DD  EEE FFF GGG H H III JJJ K K L
A A B B C   D D E   F   G   H H  I    J K K L
AAA BBB C   D D EE  FF  G G HHH  I    J KK  L
A A B B C   D D E   F   G G H H  I  J J K K L
A A BBB CCC DD  EEE F   GGG H H III JJJ K K LLL

Input: MNOPQRSTUVWX
Output:
M M N N OOO PPP QQQ RR  SSS TTT U U V V W W X X
MMM NNN O O P P Q Q R R S    T  U U V V W W  X
M M NNN O O PPP Q Q RR  SSS  T  U U V V WWW  X
M M N N O O P   QQQ R R   S  T  U U V V WWW  X
M M N N OOO P   QQQ R R SSS  T  UUU  V  WWW X X

Input: YZ!
Output:
Y Y ZZZ !!!
Y Y   Z !!!
YYY  Z  !!!
  Y Z
YYY ZZZ !!!

The winner is the shortest source code, as counted by the number of bytes it takes to store the file in utf-8 encoding. Source code should read input from stdin, output to stdout. You can assume input will only contain [A-Z! ]. If you insult the user on incorrect input, you get a 10 character discount =P.

I was going to require these exact 28 characters, but to make it more interesting, you can choose how you want them to look – whatever makes your code shorter! To prove that your letters do look like normal letters, show the output of the last three runs.

---

Shortest codes so far, in characters (utf8 encoding if non-ASCII present):

133 J

205 Python

209 Ruby

313 Haskell

345 C89

382 F#

Answer 1

J, 133 135 79 83 84 88 characters (utf-8 encoding)

;/5 3$"1(' ',.s){~"1#:3 u:(ucp'翇篭篯礧歮禧禤祯寭璗牯宭䤧彭忭筯篤筿殭秏璒孯孪寿咕寏犧'){~0>.64-~a.i.s=:

Usage:

    ;/5 3$"1(' ',.s){~"1#:3 u:(ucp'翇篭篯礧歮禧禤祯寭璗牯宭䤧彭忭筯篤筿殭秏璒孯孪寿咕寏犧'){~0>.64-~a.i.s=:'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ !'
┌───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┐
│AAA│BBB│CCC│DD │EEE│FFF│GGG│H H│III│JJJ│K K│L  │M M│N N│OOO│PPP│QQQ│RR │SSS│TTT│U U│V V│W W│X X│Y Y│ZZZ│   │!!!│
│A A│B B│C  │D D│E  │F  │G  │H H│ I │  J│K K│L  │MMM│NNN│O O│P P│Q Q│R R│S  │ T │U U│V V│W W│ X │Y Y│  Z│   │!!!│
│AAA│BBB│C  │D D│EE │FF │G G│HHH│ I │  J│KK │L  │M M│NNN│O O│PPP│Q Q│RR │SSS│ T │U U│V V│WWW│ X │YYY│ Z │   │!!!│
│A A│B B│C  │D D│E  │F  │G G│H H│ I │J J│K K│L  │M M│N N│O O│P  │QQQ│R R│  S│ T │U U│V V│WWW│ X │  Y│Z  │   │   │
│A A│BBB│CCC│DD │EEE│F  │GGG│H H│III│JJJ│K K│LLL│M M│N N│OOO│P  │QQQ│R R│SSS│ T │UUU│ V │WWW│X X│YYY│ZZZ│   │!!!│
└───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┘

    ;/5 3$"1(' ',.s){~"1#:3 u:(ucp'翇篭篯礧歮禧禤祯寭璗牯宭䤧彭忭筯篤筿殭秏璒孯孪寿咕寏犧'){~0>.64-~a.i.s=:'this is incorrect input.'
|index error

Explanation (NB. is comment in J):

;/              NB. String together along the third dimension...
5 3$"1          NB. ... reshape each line to 5x3...
(' ',.s)        NB. ... a space before each letter of the input string...
{~"1            NB. ... indexed using...
#:              NB. ... the (15 bit) binary representation of ...
3 u:            NB. ... the integer representation of...
(ucp'翇篭篯礧歮禧禤祯寭璗牯宭䤧彭忭筯篤筿殭秏璒孯孪寿咕寏犧')  ... the unicode versions of these code points...
{~              NB. ...indexed using...
0>.             NB. ...the max of 0 and...
64-~            NB. ...64 less than...
a.i.            NB. the ascii indexes of s
s=:             NB. Assign the input string to the variable s.