Convert PCX to PPM

The PCX file extension, standing for PiCture eXchange, is a raster image format developed by ZSoft Corporation in 1985 for its PC Paintbrush software. It became one of the first widely accepted DOS imaging standards, supporting palette-indexed images from 2 to 256 colors and later true-color (24-bit) images. PCX files use RLE (Run-Length Encoding) compression, making them smaller in size. Although largely replaced by formats like BMP, JPEG, and PNG, PCX was pivotal in early computer graphics and is still supported by various image processing software.

The Portable Pixmap (PPM) file extension, an image format within the Netpbm family, stores simple, uncompressed images. Introduced in the late 1980s, PPM supports RGB color and grayscale images, making it suitable for basic image processing and conversion tasks. Its plain text encoding simplifies debugging and data manipulation, although its lack of compression results in larger file sizes compared to modern formats. As such, PPM finds limited use in contemporary applications, mainly in educational and experimental settings where ease of implementation and readability are prioritized.