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r8format - Tools for Manipulating and Converting Retro-8-bit File Formats

This repository contains tools (mainly written in Python) and Python libraries for manipulating and converting some common file formats used on old 8-bit computers.

Installation

This is a PyPA package than can be built/installed with any compliant tool, such as Pip. We suggest you install it in a virtualenv, but this isn't necessary. Typical methods of installation include:

#   Install the most recent release from PyPI
pip install r8format        # https://pypi.org/project/r8format/

#   Install the latest version directly from GitHub.
pip install git+https://github.com/mc68-net/r8format.git

#   Install local copy of the repo in editable form.
#   You almost certainly want to be using a virtual environment for this.
pip install -q -e ./r8format

On Linux, the top-level ./Test script in the repo will run both the unit and functional (command-line) tests. This has been tested only under Linux, but will likely work under Windows as well.

If you have a need to run this on a platform that isn't working, please contact the authors (below) for support.

Programs

bastok

bastok is a system for de-tokenising and re-tokenising MS-BASIC programs; it currently supports MSX-BASIC 2.0. Its special powers include user-configurable conversion between MSX character sets/encodings and Unicode and an "expanded" Unicode file format that allows better formatting and extra comments while being able to compress this back down to a format that uses minimal space in microcomputer memory. See doc/bastok.md for full documentation.

The command-line programs include:

  • detok: De-tokenise a BASIC program to Unicode.
  • basdump: Show a hex dump of tokenised MS-BASIC programs that formats the information to make clear the line pointer, line number and tokenised text information.
  • blines: Produce single BASIC lines from ASCII/Unicode BASIC source that may split lines using detok's expanded format.

Additional tools for developers under bin/ in the source repo include:

  • bddiff: Use meld or another diff tool to show the differences between the basdump output of two tokenised MS-BASIC programs.
  • msxemu: Start an OpenMSX emulator instance.

cmtconv

cmtconv converts WAV files of cassette tape saves to .cas and other data file formats, and vice versa. It also understands higher-level formats such as BASIC and machine-language files. See doc/cmtconv.md for full documentation.

The command line programs include:

  • cmtconv: Conversion program. Use -h for help.
  • analyze-cmt: Analysis of (usually unknown) CMT save formats in WAV files.

Other Programs

Additional command-line programs include:

  • msx-dasm: Disassemble an MSX BSAVE-format program using z80dasm.

Python Libraries

The following top-level modules are under pylib:

  • binary: Object file and assembler symbol file formats.
  • bastok: MS-BASIC de- and re-tokenisation.
  • cmtconv: Microcomputer CMT (cassette tape) image handling.

Support

Contact Curt Sampson (usually known as 'cjs') if you have questions, comments, feature requests, or just want help using this. The following are good places to get in touch, more or less in order of preference:

  • The "The MSX2 Channel" server on Discord, in the #development group. (Feel free to start a thread if the question is not trivially answered.)
  • @cjs_cynic on Telegram
  • 0cjs on Discord.
  • Email to [email protected], but a reply from that might take days.

Authors