CGA Image

CGA Tools Suite

Cross-platform tools for working with Big Blue Disk PAK format and CGA graphics

CGA Image

About This Project

These tools help you work with the PAK format used in Big Blue Disk, an IBM PC disk magazine released by Softdisk in 1986. The magazine's content was written in QBASIC and Turbo Pascal, with graphics stored as full-screen compressed CGA images.

The PAK format uses a custom RLE (Run-Length Encoding) compression with embedded CGA palette information. These web-based tools allow you to view, analyze, and export CGA graphics directly in your browser.

PAK Viewer

Load and view compressed .pak files. Automatically decodes RLE compression and displays CGA images with the embedded palette.

CGA Viewer

Interpret any binary file as CGA image data. Adjust width, offset, palette, and background color to visualize raw data.

CGA Exporter

Load PNG images, extract their palette, and export as 2-bit packed binary data suitable for CGA display.

Pixel Font Extractor

Load a monochrome spritesheet and extract individual character blocks into a byte array suitable for embedded systems (e.g., C/C++).