PetPet

PetPet is a PETSCII editor for Commodore 64 computers. As it is written entirely in Python, it runs on any platform supported by Python (Windows, MacOS, Linux and others).

screenshot

Why PetPet?

reason | description ---|--- script | no compiling, easy to modify import and export to your needs portable | available on Linux, MacOS, Windows and any other system supported by Python3

Author

fieserWolF/Abyss-Connection - initial work - https://github.com/fieserWolF https://csdb.dk/scener/?id=3623

Acknowledgements

Logiker for testing and feature ideas
Mermaid for the still wonderful PETSCII entitled "Gary"

Using PetPet

shortcuts

key | function ---|--- Alt-q | quit Alt-o | open PETSCII (json) Alt-s | save PETSCII (json) Ctrl-s | save PETSCII (json) Alt-Shift-s | save PETSCII (json) as Alt-g | toggle grid Ctrl-z | undo Ctrl-x | cut Ctrl-c | copy Ctrl-v | paste

drawing modes

Use left mouse-button to draw. These are the drawing modes:

mode | description ---|--- pen | draw characters and colors brush | draw only colors pencil | draw only characters writemode | type characters on your keyboard directly at mouse position inverted writemode | type inverted characters on your keyboard directly at mouse position 4x4 | draw 4x4 pixels freely with your mouse inverted 4x4 | draw inverted 4x4 pixels freely with your mouse set bg | choose a color, then click into the picture to change the background color ($d021) set border | choose a color, then click into the picture to change the border color ($d020)

cut, copy and paste

Use right mouse-button to select an area. Then, use the usual hotkeys (STRG+X, STRG+C, STRG+V) to cut, copy and paste.

How to change the color-palette

The default palette is PEPTO. You can change the color-palette for previewing on your PC in your own configuration-file. In this JSON file you can edit the "palette" array. See section "PetPet JSON configuration format".

How to change the layout

You can change the layout of the available characters in your own configuration-file. In this JSON file you can edit the "layout" array. See section "PetPet JSON configuration format".

Example layouts:

layout1

layout2

Commandline options

PetPet v1.00 REVISION PARTY 2025 [19.04.2025] *** by fieserWolF
usage: petpet.py [-h] [-p PETSCII_FILENAME] [-c CONFIG_FILENAME] [-f FONT_FILENAME]

This is a PETSCII editor. Press F1 for help in the program.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -p, --petscii_file PETSCII_FILENAME
						petscii filename (.json)
  -c, --config_file CONFIG_FILENAME
						name of configuration file (.json)
  -f, --font_file FONT_FILENAME
						name of font (2048 bytes)

Example: ./petpet.py -p gfx.json -c config.json -f font.bin

Getting Started

Petpet comes in two flavors:

standalone executable for 64-bit systems Linux and Windows (see releases)
Python3 script

Run the standalone executable

Just download your bundle at releases, extract the zip file and enjoy.

Run the Python3 script directly

Install Python

Prerequisites

Python3 is needed to run PetPet. Everything else needed should be provided in your Python3 installation by default:

json
tkinter
argparse

Install Python on Windows or Mac

Download Python from https://www.python.org.
Install Python on your computer.

Install Python on Linux

On my Debian GNU/Linux machine I use apt to install everything needed:

apt update
apt install python3 python3-tk

Alternatively, you can use pip to install missing modules:

pip3 install argparse json

Download PetPet

Go to https://github.com/fieserWolF/petpet.
Click on the green "Code" button and "Download ZIP".
Extract the downloaded ZIP-file to any folder.

File Formats

The PETSCII image is natively stored as a json file. There is also a binary import and export.

PetPet JSON format

object | key | type | value ---|---|---|--- info | program | string | "PetPet" info | version | string | e.g. "1.0" settings | background | number | color 0-15 settings | border | number | color 0-15 settings | font | string | filename of font settings | grid | boolean | True or False . | char | array of 1000 numbers | characters (0-255) . | color | array of 1000 numbers | colors (0-15)

binary format

You can customize this to your own needs in code/action.py in the functions load_petscii_bin() and save_petscii_bin() .

offset | size in bytes | value ---|---|--- 0 | 1000 | characters 1000 | 1000 | colors 1001 | 1 | background color 1002 | 1 | border color

PETSCII-EDITOR binary format

Use this to exchange images with my native C64 tool "Petscii-Editor" ( see https://csdb.dk/release/?id=155723 ).

offset | size in bytes | value ---|---|--- 0 | 2 | start address $3000 (low, high) 2 | 1000 | characters 1002 | 1 | border color 1003 | 1 | background color 1004 | 1 | $d018 value ($14 or $16) 1026 | 1000 | colors

PetPet JSON configuration format

object | key | type | value ---|---|---|--- info | program | string | "PetPet" info | version | string | e.g. "1.0" settings | background | number | color 0-15 settings | border | number | color 0-15 settings | font | string | filename of font settings | grid | boolean | True or False . | palette | array of 16*3 numbers | red, green, blue value for each C64 color (default: PEPTO colors) (0-255) . | layout | array of 256 numbers | characters (0-255)

Changelog

Future plans

Any help and support in any form is highly appreciated.

If you have a feature request, a bug report or if you want to offer help, please, contact me:

http://csdb.dk/scener/?id=3623 or wolf@abyss-connection.de

Changes in 1.03

(next release candidate)

improved GUI
mouse wheel in drawing window zooms in and out
added "open config" menu item
added layout for dirart "config_dirart.json" (with restricted character-set)

Changes in 1.02

improved undo
character selection preview in selected color (thanks, Groepaz!)
image-preview export for PC (PPM format)
improved documentation
new mode: inverted writemode
new mode: 4x4 mode (just draw with your mouse)
new mode: inverted 4x4 mode
improved help
new about infowindow
various bug-fixes

Changes in 1.01

improved selection box
added write-mode
gui improvements
export to C64 executable
improved documentation

Changes in 1.0

released on REVISION PARTY 2025

initial release

License

PetPet is a PETSCII editor for Commodore 64 computers.

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

See the LICENSE file for details.

For further questions, please contact me at http://csdb.dk/scener/?id=3623 or wolf@abyss-connection.de

For Python3, Tcl/Tk and other used source licenses see file LICENSE_OTHERS.

Petpet

Install / Use

README