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Were there actually any/many 8-bit machines that supported palette-based color? I think of this as more something from the Atari ST era; in fact, I think I dis

Were there actually any/many 8-bit machines that supported palette-based color? I think of this as more something from the Atari ST era; in fact, I think I distinctly remember the waterfall effect from the NEOchrome examples: https://www.retroshowcase.gr/index.php?p=article&artid=3 https://www.retroshowcase.gr/index.php?p=article&artid=3

chillingeffect 4y ago
C64, vic20, not really. Maybe limited in some ranges. E.g. grays. 8bit Ataris kinda... not palette indexing but enough colors to make it happen. Though scarcely enough memory :) Amiga(16bit), yes. VGA (8/16/32 bit). Huge yes. Underrated. E.g. mode 0x13 had 256 palette registers!
- timbit42 4y ago
  You could simulate it on a VIC-20 or C64 but it's not really color cycling because you'd have to change the color RAM. The background color could be cycled but cycling one color isn't very useful. The Atari 8-bit computers can display and cycle 4 out of 128 colors, which is quite limited.
sirwhinesalot 4y ago
The NES, Master System and MSX 2 all did though they could not produce images like those in the showcase. They'd need a lot more colors, so we're talking Amiga / VGA tier graphics at least.
Findecanor 4y ago
I think "8-bit" refers to "8 bits per pixel" in this case, not "8-bit platform".
- Patrick_Devine 4y ago
  This seems correct. If you click on "Show Options" it shows the palette w/ 256 colours (i.e. 2^8 bits). Each pixel is just an index into the palette.
timbit42 4y ago
The Atari 8-bit computers can but only with 4 colors chosen from 128. The Amstrad CPC computer can with 16 out of 27 colors. The Amstrad CPC Plus models can with 16 out of 4096 colors. I believe the MSX 2 and 2+ models can as well as they have 4096 or more colors. Other possibilities are the Enterprise 64/128, Thomson TO8, Fujitsu FM 77 AV, and Sam Coupe. I mentioned these because they all have 128 or more colors but can only display a small subset of them so changing the palette should allow color cycling.
- Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
  This was one of the best bits of palette chicanery on the CPC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huHwm1Vx0NU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huHwm1Vx0NU The perspective scroll is achieved by having a colour for each 'column' of the text. The letters are then drawn by setting the palette at the start of each scanline. So for a letter T, you'd have a few scanlines with ink 1, 2, and 3 all set to green; then the remaining scanlines with ink 1 and 3 set to black, and ink 2 set to green. Later on it varies the technique by using different shapes, by changing the colour selection per line, and so on.
Tyr42 4y ago
GBA and DS totally used palette with their hardware tiler.

chillingeffect 4y ago

C64, vic20, not really. Maybe limited in some ranges. E.g. grays. 8bit Ataris kinda... not palette indexing but enough colors to make it happen. Though scarcely enough memory :) Amiga(16bit), yes. VGA (8/16/32 bit). Huge yes. Underrated. E.g. mode 0x13 had 256 palette registers!

timbit42 4y ago
You could simulate it on a VIC-20 or C64 but it's not really color cycling because you'd have to change the color RAM. The background color could be cycled but cycling one color isn't very useful. The Atari 8-bit computers can display and cycle 4 out of 128 colors, which is quite limited.

sirwhinesalot 4y ago

The NES, Master System and MSX 2 all did though they could not produce images like those in the showcase. They'd need a lot more colors, so we're talking Amiga / VGA tier graphics at least.

Findecanor 4y ago

I think "8-bit" refers to "8 bits per pixel" in this case, not "8-bit platform".

Patrick_Devine 4y ago
This seems correct. If you click on "Show Options" it shows the palette w/ 256 colours (i.e. 2^8 bits). Each pixel is just an index into the palette.

timbit42 4y ago

The Atari 8-bit computers can but only with 4 colors chosen from 128. The Amstrad CPC computer can with 16 out of 27 colors. The Amstrad CPC Plus models can with 16 out of 4096 colors. I believe the MSX 2 and 2+ models can as well as they have 4096 or more colors. Other possibilities are the Enterprise 64/128, Thomson TO8, Fujitsu FM 77 AV, and Sam Coupe. I mentioned these because they all have 128 or more colors but can only display a small subset of them so changing the palette should allow color cycling.

Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
This was one of the best bits of palette chicanery on the CPC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huHwm1Vx0NU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huHwm1Vx0NU The perspective scroll is achieved by having a colour for each 'column' of the text. The letters are then drawn by setting the palette at the start of each scanline. So for a letter T, you'd have a few scanlines with ink 1, 2, and 3 all set to green; then the remaining scanlines with ink 1 and 3 set to black, and ink 2 set to green. Later on it varies the technique by using different shapes, by changing the colour selection per line, and so on.

Tyr42 4y ago

GBA and DS totally used palette with their hardware tiler.