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).
| 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 |
- fieserWolF/Abyss-Connection - initial work - https://github.com/fieserWolF https://csdb.dk/scener/?id=3623
- Logiker for testing and feature ideas
- Mermaid for the still wonderful PETSCII entitled "Gary"
| 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 |
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) |
Use right mouse-button to select an area. Then, use the usual hotkeys (STRG+X, STRG+C, STRG+V) to cut, copy and paste.
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".
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:
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
Python3 is needed to run PetPet. Everything else needed should be provided in your Python3 installation by default:
- json
- tkinter
- argparse
- Download Python from https://www.python.org.
- Install Python on your computer.
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 tk argparse json
- Go to https://github.com/fieserWolF/petpet.
- Click on the green "Code" button and "Download ZIP".
- Extract the downloaded ZIP-file to any folder.
The PETSCII image is natively stored as a json file. There is also a binary import and export.
| 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) |
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 |
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 |
| 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) |
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
(next release candidate)
- 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
- improved selection box
- added write-mode
- gui improvements
- export to C64 executable
- improved documentation
released on REVISION PARTY 2025
- initial release
PetPet is a PETSCII editor for Commodore 64 computers.
Copyright (C) 2025 fieserWolF / Abyss-Connection
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, The Python Imaging Library (PIL), Tcl/Tk and other used source licenses see file LICENSE_OTHERS.