MSX Picture Filter for The GIMP

Now that Paulo Silva's (nitrofurano) ZX Spectrum filter for The GIMP was working nicely, I thought I'd like to try converting one of his other sdlBasic picture filters into a Python GIMP plug-in.

I chose the MSX1 Screen 2 filter, as it looked quite similar to the ZX Spectrum filter. I'd never actually seen an MSX computer working (I saw some switched off in a shop once) so I didn't really know what to expect until I read up on Wikipedia.

Whereas the ZX Spectrum suffered from attribute clash on the character square level, MSX1 suffered from attribute clash on the character row level so I was expecting the resulting images to look like slightly better ZX Spectrum images. And so it turned out.

To compare, here is John Liven's photograph of a cottage:

Cottage - Photo: John Livens

And here it is processed by the ZX Spectrum filter:

Cottage - ZX Spectrum

And finally by the MSX1 filter:

Cottage - MSX1

Converting the filter was straightforward, and I managed to find and fix a small bug in the sdlBasic original whilst I was going along.

As always, the finished MSX1 filter can be downloaded from here.