[Coco] Projector-3 .asm encoder driver

[Robert Gault]

Roger Taylor wrote:
> Robert,
> 
> I wrote the P-3 format driver for the .asm picture format.  It writes 
> out an .asm file full of CCASM fqb's such as "fqb $FFFCABDB" for 192 
> lines of graphics x 160 bytes.
> 
> I haven't figured out yet how to handle the color remapping (P-3 to the 
> game palette), but the game uses a Windows-similar set of colors where 8 
> are primaries and secondaries, which P-3 also uses but are probably in 
> different slots.  This should be no problem to cure shortly.  I can 
> probably just put the same palette in P-3 and add it to the menu of 
> palettes to choose from.  Dithering or not, the colors will match the 
> indices for the game.
> 
> After a bit of work, I am now LOADM'ing the Jeweled game, the backdrop 
> image of the rough diamonds is loaded into MMU blocks $30-$33 and during 
> the game a PCLS causes the backdrop to copy to the main screen, then 
> everything is overlayed.  It works like a charm.
> 
> The port.exe tool was used after I exited P-3 to call up the picture 
> disk where the backdrop.asm file is, and a copy to Windows was done real 
> quick.  A 120k file sits there in Windows that I can copy over to my 
> game folder, and a bit of typing is needed to handle the LOADM/MMU 
> segments.  The source code is already separated into 3 8k blocks and a 
> 6144 byte block.
> 
> Major milestone, here.  Porting awesome graphics into games has now 
> become a 5 minute job at the most.  I haven't done anything for breaking 
> a P-3 image into a sprite grid, but I'm sure that's coming soon.  :)  
> What does this mean?  Existing sprites found on the web can be used 
> (with optional editing), to use for games.
> 
> I'll send the P-3 driver file when I feel it's ready enough to share.  I 
> need to add more comments and such, but it's pretty straightforward.
> 
> 

Excellent work!