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@helpcomputer0 - Beautiful pixel art based on 8-bit hardware, especially the ZX Spectrum
@thelifeofsharks - Amusing cartoons often featuring sharks
@beer - Guide to craft beer and beer events in Idaho, Oregon, Washington & Canada
@foss_events - Posting about events related to free open source software
@mcoorlim - Videos about Marvel comic books and classic retro gaming
@FediFollows @helpcomputer0 I will never not cringe at the angry fruit salad palette of the #ZXSpectrum. Give me my #Commodore64 colors (including several shades of gray) any day.
@timlocke@techhub.socialWhile I agree the C64 palette is better than the ZX Spectrum palette, I find some of the colors rather drab. I much prefer the Atari 800 palette of 256 colors.
Normally, the Atari can only display 4 colors per screen, not counting the player/missile graphics (aka. sprites), but a few low resolution modes allow either 16 luminance levels of one color, 16 colors at the same luminance level, or 9 colors of your choice.
Then there are software modes. One option is to change the palette every scan line. Other software modes allow alternating between two or three palettes on each screen refresh, allowing more than 256 colors.
@timlocke @mjgardner @FediFollows You folks talking like the Spectrum even has a "palette". You got an R bit, a G bit, a B bit, and a "bright" bit 
@timlocke 16 colors versus 256 colors is very much an apples-to-oranges comparison. If you must limit yourself to a 16-color palette, the #C64 allowed for some very expressive work that was far from drab: https://arc.net/e/2D3365F0-90E3-423D-BF80-9A5BD7B05215
#retrocomputing #pixelart #Commodore #Commodore64
@mjgardner Of all the 16 color palettes on 8-bit computers, the C64 palette was the most drab, even though there are some light colors. I think the Thomson and TMS9918 have the nicest 16 color palettes.
@timlocke No idea about #Thomson; they were pretty much limited to France? And the #TI chip… I agree it’s got good colors and the games show it, but I’m having trouble finding any troves of *art* done with machines that used it like the TI-99/4A or #ColecoAdam.
#retrocomputng #pixelart #TI994A
@mjgardner I have no idea why there isn't much art. Perhaps none of the systems that used that chip were very popular. The MSX was probably the most popular.
Also, having a good palette isn't the only important thing. The resolution also matters and the number of colors that can be displayed per screen, per cell and per line. Most of these video chips don't have the ability to do software video modes either by having an interrupt per scan line or per refresh when the palette could be changed.
@timlocke Yah, I think the #C64 had a good balance of color, resolution, and ability to do bitmaps, customizable character sets, and sprites. Add the various circumstances that built up the sheer ubiquity of the machine in the #1980s , and you get enough artists (including from the #cracktro / #demoscene) pushing the hardware and each other.
@mjgardner Yeah, you could get 4 colors per 8x8 cell on the C64. The Atari didn't have color RAM but it's GPU, the ANTIC, made it easier to use interrupts to change the palette per scan line without using much CPU. Doing that on the C64 uses up a lot of CPU so it is only useful for still photos. That said, not many games on the Atari use the software video modes, although that's largely because they weren't really explored until after games stopped being made for the Atari computers. I think I've heard of at least one game being made recently that used a software video mode but I don't know the name of it.