RGB to MSX screen 2 converter

converts 256x192 images to msx screen 2 VRAM dump

standalone

Usage info:

chmod +x rgb2msx.py
./rgb2msx.py --help

for example:

./rgb2msx.py chimp.bmp

GIMP plugin

Copy the rgb2msx.py file to the plugin directory (e.g. ~/.config/GIMP/2.10/plug-ins)

Three GIMP plugin tools will be available in a new Filter->MSX menu. RGB2MSX converts an image to MSX screen 2 16 color, and optionally writes a VRAM dump. The conversion supports transparancy (converting pixels with alpha<128 to MSX color 0). RGB2MSX allows scaling of the image and correcting for the MSX pixel aspect ratio. A seperate plugin SCALE2MSX is also available to do only the scaling and correction (this allows e.g. placement of the layer before color conversion).

Finally the LOADMSX plugin imports MSX screen 2 VRAM files (.sc2) like the ones written by the plugin. This also works as a file load handler (so you just open .sc2 files).

file format

The script writes a file with a dump of the MSX screen 2 VRAM, directly loadable with the following MSX Basic program:

10 screen 2
20 BLOAD "msx.sc2", S
30 goto 30

If you think a different format is useful, let me know in an issue.

Parallel mode

The -n<nproc> option allows parallel computation. This has been tested on linux.