Date   : Fri, 20 Dec 2013 00:08:33 +0100
From   : anders.carlsson@... (Anders Carlsson)
Subject: Physical colour numbers

J.G. Harston wrote:

> On lots of other platforms, physical colour numbers are:
>    0-7: plain colour, 8-15 bright colour.
> (eg, BBC BASIC on DOS/Windows, Commodore 64, MSX, etc)

Hm, not sure if you refer to the colours as ordered by the VIC-II and VDP 
chips, or if BBC BASIC renumbers colors in its own way.

The C64 palette has this order:

0 Black
1 White
2 Red
3 Cyan
4 Purple
5 Green
6 Blue
7 Yellow
8 Brown (not particularly bright)
9 Orange
10 Pink
11 Dark grey (ditto)
12 Medium grey
13 Light green
14 Light blue
15 Light grey

The VDP in MSX, ColecoVision, TI-99/4A etc is even worse:

0 = Transparent
1 = Black?
2 = Medium green
3 = Light green
4 = Medium blue
5 = Light blue
6 = Dark orange, light brown
7 = Light turquoise
8 = Medium orange
9 = Light orange
10 = Yellow
11 = Light yellow
12 = Dark green
13 = Purple
14 = Light grey
15 = White

I don't know what you can make out of those. Surely you could rearrange the 
primitives (BBC Micro colours) in desired order on all systems, but for 
additional colours it seems the palette is unique for each video chip.

Best regards

Anders Carlsson