10 replies to this topic

[Random Terrain]

Do the 128 colors of the Atari 2600 have official names? If they have names such as red, aqua, brown, chartreuse, royal blue, and so on, it would be nice to have that list. Does a list like that exist?

Thanks.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I don't think so. The only names I know about are those from the Stella Programmer's Guide (page 43).

[Random Terrain]

Thomas Jentzsch, on Sat Aug 6, 2005 3:55 PM, said:

I don't think so. The only names I know about are those from the Stella Programmer's Guide (page 43).

 

Thanks, that's getting closer.

COLOR              D7 D6 D5 D4 D3 D2 D1  LUM 
grey - gold        0  0  0  0  0  0  0   black 
                    0  0  0  1  0  0  1   dark grey 
orange, brt-org    0  0  1  0  0  1  0 
                    0  0  1  1  0  1  1   grey 
pink - purple      0  1  0  0  1  0  0 
                    0  1  0  1  1  0  1 
purp-blue, blue    0  1  1  0  1  1  0   light grey 
                    0  1  1  1  1  1  1   white 
blue - lt. blue    1  0  0  0 
                    1  0  0  1 
torq. - grn. blue  1  0  1  0 
                    1  0  1  1 
grn. - yel. grn.   1  1  0  0 
                    1  1  0  1 
org. grn - lt org. 1  1  1  0 
                    1  1  1  1 

Does anyone know what colors those would apply to in this chart:

http://www.randomter...html#colorchart

Edited by Random Terrain, Fri Jun 30, 2006 9:30 PM.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Random Terrain, on Sun Aug 7, 2005 1:41 AM, said:

Does anyone know what colors those would apply to in this chart:

Well, they should apply 1:1.

[Random Terrain]

Thomas Jentzsch, on Sun Aug 7, 2005 2:26 AM, said:

Random Terrain, on Sun Aug 7, 2005 1:41 AM, said:

Does anyone know what colors those would apply to in this chart:

Well, they should apply 1:1.

 

Me no understandy Stella chart to do that.

[xucaen]

Random Terrain, on Sat Aug 6, 2005 6:41 PM, said:

Does anyone know what colors those would apply to in this chart:

http://www.randomter...html#colorchart

Check this out.

http://www.urchlay.c...colorchart.html

This chart gives hex values for each color while it looks like batari's chart gives decimal values. I believe the bits are in color-lum order, and by that I mean the color value (A thru F across the top of the chart) is the left most 4 bits, and the luminosity (down the left side of the chart) is the rightmost 4 bits. So according to this chart, Black (NTSC) would be 00 and 01. Green would be C0 and C1. On batari's chart Black is 0 while Green 192 (C0 = 192)

Read more about colors here: http://www.atariage....338&mode=linear

Hope this helps!

Jim

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Random Terrain, on Sun Aug 7, 2005 9:30 AM, said:

Me no understandy Stella chart to do that.

Ok, I give you some help:

The colors from the guide (left column) are identical with those in the chart starting with left column).

The first four bits (D7..D4) represent the color, the last 3 bits the luminance of that color (D0 is unused).

E.g. 64 in the chart = $40 = %0100 000 0 = pink-purple, dark.

The problem with the guide is, that there a two names printed for one color, with the name for the next color missing. I suppose this is a formatting error (though left and right names seem to be mixed too and some names don't match at all), so:
$00 = grey
$10 = gold (or yellow?)
$20 = brt-org (brown!)
$30 = orange
$40 = pink (more like red IMO)
$50 = purp
$60 = purp-blue
$70 = blue
$80 = blue (sic?)
$90 = lt. blue (makes no sense, just another blue)
$a0 = torq.
$b0 = grn. blue
$c0 = grn.
$d0 = yel. grn.
$e0 = org. grn (more like ochre-green)
$f0 = lt org. (orange? ochre!)

[Random Terrain]

Thomas Jentzsch, on Sun Aug 7, 2005 2:47 AM, said:

Random Terrain, on Sun Aug 7, 2005 9:30 AM, said:

Me no understandy Stella chart to do that.

Ok, I give you some help:

The colors from the guide (left column) are identical with those in the chart starting with left column).

The first four bits (D7..D4) represent the color, the last 3 bits the luminance of that color (D0 is unused).

E.g. 64 in the chart = $40 = %0100 000 0 = pink-purple, dark.

The problem with the guide is, that there a two names printed for one color, with the name for the next color missing. I suppose this is a formatting error (though left and right names seem to be mixed too and some names don't match at all), so:
$00 = grey
$10 = gold (or yellow?)
$20 = brt-org (brown!)
$30 = orange
$40 = pink (more like red IMO)
$50 = purp
$60 = purp-blue
$70 = blue
$80 = blue (sic?)
$90 = lt. blue (makes no sense, just another blue)
$a0 = torq.
$b0 = grn. blue
$c0 = grn.
$d0 = yel. grn.
$e0 = org. grn (more like ochre-green)
$f0 = lt org. (orange? ochre!)

 

Thanks. Now that makes more sense. And you're right, some of those color names seem to be incorrect.

[SeaGtGruff]

Random Terrain, on Sat Aug 6, 2005 1:25 PM, said:

Do the 128 colors of the Atari 2600 have official names? If they have names such as red, aqua, brown, chartreuse, royal blue, and so on, it would be nice to have that list. Does a list like that exist?

Thanks.

 

In addition to the other replies-- which were spot-on, by the way-- I'd like to point out that the Atari 2600's colors are the same as the colors on the Atari 800 and all of its incarnations-- the only difference being that the GTIA-chipped 800 has 256 colors, whereas the 2600 and the CTIA-chipped 800 have only 128 colors, since they have only 8 even-numbered luminances versus the GTIA's 16 odd-and-even luminances. (Actually, there is also a difference between the GTIA and CTIA which results in different artifacted colors, but the 2600 can't output pixels small enough for artifacting, so that has no bearing here.)

Anyway, you might want to check out any books or documentation for the 800, the 5200, and of course the 2600, to see how the 16 hues are described, because if I remember correctly, some authors gave slightly different names for the hues. So by compiling a list of hue names from a variety of sources, you might be able to pick and choose among them to create a list that seems most accurate to you. And you can also come up with your own names, if none of the lists suit you.

Personally, I would suggest starting with a few of the hues-- the ones that seem to be the "purest" basic colors-- because the other hues are just graduated between them. For example, hue 1 is the closest to pure "yellow," and hue 4 is the closest to pure "red," so hues 2 and 3 are somehere between yellow and red-- hue 2 is basically "yellow with a hint of red," and hue 3 is "red with a hint of yellow," more or less. And since "orange" is the color that's between yellow and red, you could say that hue 2 is "yellow-orange," whereas hue 3 is "red-orange" or "orange-red."

That will help you come up with your own names for the hues (and after all, why should you stick with the names that other people used, when some of them used their own names?), and then you can factor in names for the different luminances, such as "darkest yellow" or "yellow-black" for color 16 (hue 1, luminance 0), and so on. Or, you might want to give more "colorful" names to the individual colors, such as "flesh" for the color which is closest to a pinkish flesh tone (although that raises issues of "political correctness," since not everyone is caucasian, and not all caucasians have the same skin color anyway!), or "peach," or "lemon yellow," or "lime green," and so on.

Another idea is to find an NTSC color chart or color wheel, and try to map the Atari's colors to that color wheel. I'm an ignoramous when it comes to engineering, but some of the Atari's specs appear to describe how the colors are created by phase shifting or rotating around the color wheel at various increments (but I don't know how to read and interpret those specs), so that might help you to precisely map the Atari's hues with the colors of the NTSC color wheel.

And more creatively, you might buy a box of crayons (the ones with dozens if not hundreds of colors), and try to match up the Atari's colors with the crayons. For example, which Atari color is closest to "brick red," and which is closest to "burnt umber," or "carnation pink," etc.?

Michael Rideout

[Random Terrain]

SeaGtGruff, on Mon Aug 15, 2005 11:08 PM, said:

In addition to the other replies . . .

 

Thanks. I was hoping to get the names when I still had only one color each in the color chart using a table (and cells), but then I displayed colors from Stella and z26. Some of the colors are very different, plus, adding a mouseover label to each cell would make the code for the already huge page even larger, so I gave up and turned the table into an image:

http://www.randomter...html#colorchart

That cut down the size of the actual page and the chart image isn't too large in file size either. That's more important than having an official color name pop up that no one but me would care about.

Edited by Random Terrain, Fri Jun 30, 2006 9:31 PM.

[SeaGtGruff]

Random Terrain, on Tue Aug 16, 2005 12:25 AM, said:

SeaGtGruff, on Mon Aug 15, 2005 11:08 PM, said:

In addition to the other replies . . .

 

Thanks. I was hoping to get the names when I still had only one color each in the color chart using a table (and cells), but then I displayed colors from Stella and z26. Some of the colors are very different, plus, adding a mouseover label to each cell would make the code for the already huge page even larger, so I gave up and turned the table into an image:

http://www.randomter...html#colorchart

That cut down the size of the actual page and the chart image isn't too large in file size either. That's more important than having an official color name pop up that no one but me would care about.

 

I like your chart! It's nice to be able to see the Stella and z26 colors side-by-side like that. Thank you for the work you put into it!

Michael Rideout