KoalaPainter

File Format
Name	KoalaPainter
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Graphics Commodore graphics formats KoalaPainter
Extension(s)	.koa, .gg
Released	1984

KoalaPainter was a paint program included with the KoalaPad graphics tablet. This article is mainly about the graphics format associated with the Commodore 64 version of KoalaPainter, which was a popular image format on that platform.

There is an uncompressed format, and an RLE-compressed format. On platforms that use filename extensions, the compressed format may use a .gg extension.

Format

Images use the C64's standard 16-color palette. The dimensions are 160×200 pixels, though some viewers may horizontally replicate the pixels to make them 320×200. The format uses Multicolor graphics mode of Commodore 64.

An uncompressed KoalaPainter file is exactly 10003 bytes in size, but depending on how it was migrated from the C64 platform, it may have some unused padding bytes appended to it.

Identification

Files begin with bytes 0x00 0x60 (representing the memory address at which the bitmap would normally be loaded).

Software

• Konvertor
• XnView
• RECOIL
• Tom's Editor
• Tom's Editor Desktop
• FreeImage (uncompressed only?)
• Rest7 Online Image Converter

Sample files

• http://cbmfiles.com/genie/HiResGraphicsListing.php
• http://whatis.rest7.com/how-to-open-koa-file
• http://whatis.rest7.com/how-to-open-koa-file
• https://tomseditor.com/gallery/?platform=commodore&format=multicolor
• https://telparia.com/fileFormatSamples/image/test.koa

Links

• Wikipedia: KoalaPad
• C64 Graphics File Format Specs
• The 8-Bit Guy: The KoalaPad - How we used to create graphics (video)