1977

The year the Apple II shipped.

A native macOS app that converts any image into authentic text-mode ASCII art for fifteen classic platforms — from the Apple II to the Amiga — with live previews using each system's real fonts, hardware palettes, and screen aspect.

Output can be saved as a PNG, a bootable ProDOS disk image, plain text ready to TYPE on a real Apple II, or a runnable Applesoft BASIC program.

Supported platforms

Platform	Grid	Font
Apple II (40-col)	40 × 24	Print Char 21
Apple II (80-col)	80 × 24	PR Number 3
Commodore PET	40 × 25	Pet Me 64
Commodore 64	40 × 25	Pet Me 64
Commodore 128 (80-col)	80 × 25	Pet Me 128 2Y
VIC-20	22 × 23	Pet Me 2X
Atari 8-bit	40 × 24	EightBit Atari
Atari ST	80 × 25	Atari ST 8x16
ZX Spectrum	32 × 24	ZX Spectrum
Amiga	80 × 25	Amiga Topaz
MS-DOS (CGA)	80 × 25	Perfect DOS VGA 437
Amstrad CPC	40 × 25	Amstrad CPC464
TRS-80 CoCo	32 × 16	Hot CoCo
MSX (40-col)	40 × 24	MSX Screen 0
MSX (32-col)	32 × 24	MSX Screen 1

Each platform draws on its native screen aspect ratio (e.g. 280 × 192 for Apple II, 320 × 200 for Commodore, 640 × 400 for Amiga / Atari ST / MS-DOS) and its own colour model — phosphor for monochrome systems, hardware palette for the rest.

Screenshots

Apple II 80-col · character picker popover	Atari ST · live crop tool

Commodore 128 (80-col) · custom ramp	Amiga · Workbench palette · Dense ramp

MS-DOS · CGA palette · Apple II Blocks ramp	Apple II 80-col · 48 rows (2 screens)

Atari ST · inverted Simple ramp	Commodore 128 · C64 retro UI theme

Features

• Fifteen retro platforms with native fonts, palettes, and aspect ratios.
• One screen or two — native row count, or 2× for double-screen output.
• Character ramps — Apple II Classic, Standard ASCII, Simple, Dense, PETSCII Blocks, PETSCII Symbols, CP437 Blocks, plus a custom ramp.
• Character picker popover — every glyph in the platform's font in a scrollable grid; click to build your custom ramp.
• Live crop tool — draggable, resizable selection box with locked aspect ratio, rule-of-thirds grid, pinch-zoom, two-finger pan, and mouse-wheel zoom.
• Per-platform colour memory — phosphor systems get a green / amber / white radio, palette systems get full FG/BG swatch pickers (16 colours for C64/C128/VIC-20/CGA/Atari, 8 for Spectrum/Amiga). Your last selection per platform is remembered.
• Brightness, contrast, invert with live preview (debounced 150 ms).
• Horizontal and vertical flip.
• Aspect-ratio-correct sampling — input images are mapped onto each platform's display canvas using BT.709 perceptual luminance.
• Drag-and-drop import for PNG, JPEG, TIFF, GIF, BMP, HEIC.
• Export formats:
  • PNG at 1×, 2×, or 4× the platform's native resolution.
  • Apple II Disk Image (.po) — bootable ProDOS disk with a STARTUP launcher and both 40-col and 80-col renderings.
  • Apple II Text (.txt, 7-bit ASCII, CR / 0x0D line endings) — drop onto a ProDOS disk and TYPE it.
  • Mac Text (.txt, LF endings) — for editing on the Mac.
  • Applesoft BASIC (.bas, PRINT program) — auto-inserts PR# 3 for 80-column output.

Export options

Apple II disk creation

Picking Apple II Disk Image writes a bootable ProDOS volume containing six programs and a STARTUP launcher. Boot it on real hardware or any Apple II emulator and you'll land on this menu:

Each disk carries:

• ART40 / ART80 — slow PRINT-based programs (one statement per row) you can LIST and read.
• LOADER40 / LOADER80 — fast versions: a small embedded 6502 ML routine BLOADs the screen-memory dump straight to text page 1 and (for 80-col) bank-switches into AUX RAM via PAGE2.
• ART40.BIN / ART80.BIN — raw screen-memory dumps the loaders BLOAD.
• STARTUP — auto-runs at boot, shows the picker, smart-RUNs the chosen program with PRINT CHR$(4);"-FILENAME".

Movie → Apple II video

Drop an MP4 or MOV into the Video window and 1977 streams every frame through the same ASCII / LORES converter, then writes a bootable ProDOS disk that plays the video back on real Apple II / IIgs hardware. Four output modes ship on one disk — 40-col text, 80-col text, 40-col LORES color, 80-col Double-LORES color — with a built-in 6502 ML player that streams frames from disk into text-page 1 in real time.

Same frame playing back on Apple IIgs hardware — 80-col Double-LORES streamed from the ProDOS disk by the bundled 6502 ML player.

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• Xcode 16 or later

Build & run

git clone https://github.com/portwally/1977.git
cd 1977
open AppleIIASCIIArt.xcodeproj

Then press ⌘R in Xcode.

Or build from the command line:

xcodebuild -project AppleIIASCIIArt.xcodeproj -scheme AppleIIASCIIArt -configuration Release build

How it works

1. The source image is cropped to the selection rect (or the largest centred AR-matched rect if you haven't moved it), then aspect-fill scaled into the chosen platform's display canvas.
2. The canvas is downsampled to a cols × rows bitmap — one pixel per character cell.
3. Per-cell brightness is computed via BT.709 luminance (0.2126 R + 0.7152 G + 0.0722 B) after applying brightness/contrast adjustments.
4. The 0.0 → 1.0 brightness value indexes into the chosen character ramp (dark → light).
5. The grid is rendered live in the platform's font, at the platform's foreground / background colour, with optional flips and inversion.

Fonts

Bundled retro fonts:

• Print Char 21, PR Number 3 — Apple II / IIgs by Kreative Korporation
• Pet Me 64, Pet Me 2X, Pet Me 128 2Y — Commodore PET / 64 / 128 / VIC-20 by Style
• Perfect DOS VGA 437 — by Zeh Fernando
• EightBit Atari — Atari 8-bit
• ZX Spectrum — by Damien Guard
• Amiga Topaz — Commodore Amiga
• Atari ST 8x16 System Font — Atari ST
• Amstrad CPC464 — Amstrad CPC
• Hot CoCo — TRS-80 Color Computer
• MSX Screen 0, MSX Screen 1 — MSX 40-col / 32-col

Each font retains its original license; see in-app About / Credits for details.

License

Code: see repository. Fonts retain their original licenses.