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I don't know why I'm replying to this other than to add another anecdote about the fungibility of memory. I first saw a Macintosh computer around 1984/85 when

I don't know why I'm replying to this other than to add another anecdote about the fungibility of memory. I first saw a Macintosh computer around 1984/85 when I was 7 or 8 years old, and I vividly remember the color screen. They were demoing MacPaint or possibly a SuperPaint beta and I recall the palettes being in color. Except Macs at that time were black and white! Now I realize that it was probably synesthesia where some of the gray patterns looked blue, yellow, brown or even pink. So basically it was like dreaming and seeing colors which don't exist. Although nearly all of my dreams are in black and white, and I only remember a handful of dreams that had color, like a recent one that had a fruit bowl with all of the colors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperPaint_(Macintosh) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperPaint_(Macintosh) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Color_Classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Color_Classic (hadn't been created yet) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVcv8ORSZEQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVcv8ORSZEQ Color Macintosh Plus (mod) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slY_F1MxGlk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slY_F1MxGlk The Mac Plus had modern multi monitor support in 1986 and I got it working! (not me!) I'm especially curious about the last link, because there's a remote chance that someone had a Mac Plus with a color video card that I was lucky enough to witness in a rare demo. But the odds of that are pretty slim. Maybe some old graybeard knows of such a thing.

FiatLuxDave 2y ago
Are you sure it was a Mac and not an Apple ][ ? I believe those had support for color at the time.
- zackmorris 2y ago
  Ya I'm positive it was a Mac Plus form factor and not an Apple ][ (cool brackets btw, very nostalgic). And 90% sure that the drawing program was MacPaint, although I can't explain why I remember it being in color. - While I'm here, I want to link back to an earlier comment I made about synesthesia where patterns look like colors: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40602237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40602237 https://gagadget.com/en/446542-a-photo-of-a-coca-cola-can-that-looks-red-but-is-made-up-of-only-black-and-blue-pixels-is-being-shared-on-social-media-how-does-it-work/ https://gagadget.com/en/446542-a-photo-of-a-coca-cola-can-th... I think this mechanism was at play because I had never seen a dot matrix black and white display before, and thought that the Mac OS checkerboard gray pattern was especially cool. I distinctly remember one of the darker gray patterns appearing blue. So I wonder if my mind filled in the pink/red like in the Coke image. The brick wall and roof tile patterns also stirred my imagination, perhaps triggering a feeling of red. I think most people with sight have rod cells which are sensitive to cyan, so I've always wondered if a negative afterimage in low light could simulate red for people with varying degrees of color blindness, technically color shiftedness, since they can see colors like gold/khaki that people with ordinary vision can't see but only see as a secondary mix of red and green light making yellow: https://www.google.com/search?q=negative+afterimage https://www.google.com/search?q=negative+afterimage (click Images for examples) Unfortunately Google broke their search engine so we can't link directly to images anymore, a 1000th reason why it maybe shouldn't exist as a company anymore due to its recent behavior, but I digress: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21530274/format-for-a-url-that-goes-to-google-image-search/21530382#21530382 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21530274/format-for-a-ur... I also had dozens of concussions growing up feral in the 80s, and I think that may have exacerbated my neurodivergency and ADHD symptoms, giving me endless curiosity. I stumbled onto an article the other day about shroom microdosing possibly regrowing connections between brain cells to treat traumatic brain injury, similar to this one: https://jmvfh.utpjournals.press/doi/full/10.3138/jmvfh-2022-0084 https://jmvfh.utpjournals.press/doi/full/10.3138/jmvfh-2022-... So I wonder if psychedelics and exercises to train the visual cortex to discern colors better, combined with various medications that might slightly shift the opsin receptor frequencies in the eye, could improve color discernment for some people. As I've gotten older, I've come to realize that our memories and perception of reality itself can change over time, because everything we perceive is actually in our minds. So for example, I had forgotten about the Mac Plus for 30-40 years, but now the memory is more vivid because it's connected to recent thoughts through time. It's going to be weird in 10-20 years when something like Neuralink allows us to see without using our eyes. I suspect that we will discover new colors in the ultraviolet and infrared range that birds and insects see that we haven't seen before, as well as new impossible colors like green plus magenta/purple making octarine, the color of magic: https://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/04/19/octarine-the-imaginary-color-of-magic/ https://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/04/19/octarine-the-im... I guess this got long and random, but hey, it's Saturday.

FiatLuxDave 2y ago

Are you sure it was a Mac and not an Apple ][ ? I believe those had support for color at the time.

zackmorris 2y ago
Ya I'm positive it was a Mac Plus form factor and not an Apple ][ (cool brackets btw, very nostalgic). And 90% sure that the drawing program was MacPaint, although I can't explain why I remember it being in color. - While I'm here, I want to link back to an earlier comment I made about synesthesia where patterns look like colors: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40602237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40602237 https://gagadget.com/en/446542-a-photo-of-a-coca-cola-can-that-looks-red-but-is-made-up-of-only-black-and-blue-pixels-is-being-shared-on-social-media-how-does-it-work/ https://gagadget.com/en/446542-a-photo-of-a-coca-cola-can-th... I think this mechanism was at play because I had never seen a dot matrix black and white display before, and thought that the Mac OS checkerboard gray pattern was especially cool. I distinctly remember one of the darker gray patterns appearing blue. So I wonder if my mind filled in the pink/red like in the Coke image. The brick wall and roof tile patterns also stirred my imagination, perhaps triggering a feeling of red. I think most people with sight have rod cells which are sensitive to cyan, so I've always wondered if a negative afterimage in low light could simulate red for people with varying degrees of color blindness, technically color shiftedness, since they can see colors like gold/khaki that people with ordinary vision can't see but only see as a secondary mix of red and green light making yellow: https://www.google.com/search?q=negative+afterimage https://www.google.com/search?q=negative+afterimage (click Images for examples) Unfortunately Google broke their search engine so we can't link directly to images anymore, a 1000th reason why it maybe shouldn't exist as a company anymore due to its recent behavior, but I digress: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21530274/format-for-a-url-that-goes-to-google-image-search/21530382#21530382 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21530274/format-for-a-ur... I also had dozens of concussions growing up feral in the 80s, and I think that may have exacerbated my neurodivergency and ADHD symptoms, giving me endless curiosity. I stumbled onto an article the other day about shroom microdosing possibly regrowing connections between brain cells to treat traumatic brain injury, similar to this one: https://jmvfh.utpjournals.press/doi/full/10.3138/jmvfh-2022-0084 https://jmvfh.utpjournals.press/doi/full/10.3138/jmvfh-2022-... So I wonder if psychedelics and exercises to train the visual cortex to discern colors better, combined with various medications that might slightly shift the opsin receptor frequencies in the eye, could improve color discernment for some people. As I've gotten older, I've come to realize that our memories and perception of reality itself can change over time, because everything we perceive is actually in our minds. So for example, I had forgotten about the Mac Plus for 30-40 years, but now the memory is more vivid because it's connected to recent thoughts through time. It's going to be weird in 10-20 years when something like Neuralink allows us to see without using our eyes. I suspect that we will discover new colors in the ultraviolet and infrared range that birds and insects see that we haven't seen before, as well as new impossible colors like green plus magenta/purple making octarine, the color of magic: https://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/04/19/octarine-the-imaginary-color-of-magic/ https://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/04/19/octarine-the-im... I guess this got long and random, but hey, it's Saturday.