4096 colors converted to Standard ST

ROWBEARTOE · Post by **ROWBEARTOE** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 6:58 am

Well after a lot of work I made some colorful 4,096 color displays using the PC for the purpose of converting to a STandard ST computer with a 512 color palette. It looks amazing!!!! I'm very happy- little to no apparent flicker. Im using a JVC Atari SC1224 monitor (designed for the Mega ST computers) and they look very sharp. I hope you enjoy these pictures and thanks to all those who made it possible for me to save them to my PC.

ROWBEARTOE · Post by **ROWBEARTOE** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:13 pm

I made a few more quick varients. Just playing now. =) BTW- these are all "non flicker" photochrome pictures for a standard 512 color ST computer.

ROWBEARTOE · Post by **ROWBEARTOE** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 9:20 am

A few more varients. AND thanks to the impressive "4096" color displays I was inspired to make a new Spectrum 512 picture as well. =) The "E" and "F" pictures include both the standard 512 colors AND the photochrome conversion of 4,096 for a standard ST. As the others, the photochrome pictures are using the "non flicker" and are displayable on a 512 color ST computer. =)

ROWBEARTOE · Post by **ROWBEARTOE** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 10:05 am

I'm having some fun- a few more. =)

bullis1 · Post by **bullis1** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 12:57 pm

Judging from your other posts, you've been playing around with these programs for a long time. Do you have some sort of colour-spectrum obsession? You seem to really enjoy looking at large amounts of colour.

I'm not trying to be a smart-a$$, I'm just curious about your images and tests. The ST can indeed do some impressive things.

ROWBEARTOE · Post by **ROWBEARTOE** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 6:35 pm

I get in moods- way way way back in the 8-Bit Atari days- I was so impressed with seeing that famous 128 color scrolling (even on the Atari 2600) because no other computer could do them- since then, every now and then, I like to see differn't color paterns to the best of that machines ability- the ST has limitations (as the Amiga does) so I like to be as creative as possible at displaying the colors. When Mac II and VGA became available, I liked having more than 256 colors on display, simply because they couldn't at the time. Nothing more, nothing less- As you can see from the 4 and 16 color art- I also like to draw "normal" pictures as well. Just moods- and in my opinion these pictures, look like they belong to a more powerful computer.

bullis1 · Post by **bullis1** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 6:54 pm

I see, that makes sense. I remember some cool demos for 386 PC way back that displayed thousands of colours at very odd resolutions on plain VGA cards. I am always impressed by colour boosting on limited hardware, like ST, Sega Genesis (the Sega has some real interesting tricks for this), etc.

You should do some cool high-colour pictures. Even if the artwork is crude. I'd love to see it! Or convert some original photography of yours, if you have any. Keep it up and be creative!

ROWBEARTOE · Post by **ROWBEARTOE** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 7:44 pm

[quote="bullis1"]I see, that makes sense. I remember some cool demos for 386 PC way back that displayed thousands of colours at very odd resolutions on plain VGA cards. I am always impressed by colour boosting on limited hardware, like ST, Sega Genesis (the Sega has some real interesting tricks for this), etc.

Sega Genesis has the same color pallete of the ST- I was impressed with Donkey Kong Country on the SNES- that was very impressive- As far as game machines- The Jaguar's VLM machine and Tempest 2000 was and is still very impressive as well.

bullis1 · Post by **bullis1** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 8:11 pm

ROWBEARTOE wrote:Sega Genesis has the same color pallete of the ST- I was impressed with Donkey Kong Country on the SNES- that was very impressive- As far as game machines- The Jaguar's VLM machine and Tempest 2000 was and is still very impressive as well.

I know the Sega Genesis has a 512 colour palette, but is it really the exact same as the ST? The PC Engine/Turbo Grafx also has a 512 colour palette but it seems so much more vibrant than the ST or Genesis. Perhaps that is thanks to its video output hardware though.

I recently bought Donkey Kong Country 3 for SNES. I wasn't as impressed by the colour now like I was with the DKC games when they first came out. Maybe its because everything is rendered now instead of pixel-painted. Plus, it uses mostly browns and greens anyway.

darklight · Post by **darklight** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 11:28 pm

The reason why Genesis / Megadrive / PC Engine / Turbo Grafx games were so much more vibrant is to do with the amount of colours that can be displayed at once.

Genesis / Megadrive has a palette of 512 colours, with a total (I think?) of 64 on the screen at the same time.
PC Engine has a palette of 512 colours, with all 512 availalbe on screen at the same time
SNES has a pallette of 32768, with loads on screen at the same time - depending on which graphics mode.

bullis1 · Post by **bullis1** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 12:50 pm

darklight wrote:The reason why Genesis / Megadrive / PC Engine / Turbo Grafx games were so much more vibrant is to do with the amount of colours that can be displayed at once.
Genesis / Megadrive has a palette of 512 colours, with a total (I think?) of 64 on the screen at the same time.
PC Engine has a palette of 512 colours, with all 512 availalbe on screen at the same time
SNES has a pallette of 32768, with loads on screen at the same time - depending on which graphics mode.

This is all true but what I was referring to was something like if you were to display the same 16 colour image on 3 different hardware systems, it would be something like this:
most vibrant colour: Turbo Grafx 16
second place: Atari ST (on a monitor)
least vibrant: Sega Genesis
I wasn't referring to the amount of on-screen colours, but a difference in the actual palettes and video output. I wasn't even going to compare the SNES or other 16-bits because that doesn't have a 512 colour palette.

Also, it is possible to get more vibrant colour on Genesis than on ST in some cases. This is a very difficult thing to measure with just your eyes and simple theories.

ROWBEARTOE · Post by **ROWBEARTOE** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:51 pm

NEVER heard of anyone ever saying the ST monitors were not vibrant- or color rich! As a matter of fact- I hooked up my Atari Jaguar to the SC1224 (goldstar version) because the color couldn't be matched on any other display. The sacrafice was a small monitor. My monitors are old, but they still are very bright, clear, and vibrant- In many ways better than my IBM CRT PC monitor (which i prefer over LCD displays). I'm very display picky, and I prefer CRT HDTV's over any others- (I bought two since they are to be extinct). The only "major" drawback is they don't offer 1080p. But back to my point, the Atari monitors produce very nice pictures. When I played and watched those game machines, I don't ever recall being impressed by the color contrast for vibrance. And I had a very nice TV to play them on. Perhaps they should have made an adaptor to play other machines on the Atari monitor? =)

These are some quotes about the Atari monitors from Byte magazine and a Info (a Commodore magazine) in 1986. Info had an issue about using alternative montors for the Amiga and they were so impressed by the Atari monitor they made an adaptor to use it.

" “All of the displays are clear, sharp, readable, and flicker free. We were particularly impressed by the clarity of the high-resolution monochrome.”
– Byte Magazine
“The Atari RGBA color monitor has a blacker screen and sharper colors than the Amiga display. The Amiga RGBA monitor is bigger by an inch, and provides adequate color and resolution, but the Atari’s display beats the Amiga’s hands-down for sheer clarity, contrast, and intensity.”
– Info Magazine
“Atari’s video output looks better than the Amiga’s in a side-by-side comparison”
– Info Magazine

bullis1 · Post by **bullis1** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 7:44 pm

I don't know if this is what you meant, but I wasn't saying that Atari didn't have vibrant colours on a monitor. I was saying that it did. I only said "(on a monitor)" so people would know I wasn't referring to an RF connection to TV or something lame like that.

Turbo Grafx 16 still looks better even on a TV than an Atari on a monitor though. I have my TG16 on a monitor, along with some other consoles.

Those quotes you posted are interesting, and true for their time period. Nowadays I would describe the black-levels of most colour Atari ST monitors as "greyish." Still good though, but CRT technology advanced a lot, very quickly in the 90s. I'm sure you could get awesome results from some later multisync monitors.

darklight · Post by **darklight** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:55 am

Ah - got ya! Sorry, havent got a clue though

There was a time when I would have said "it must be the display" - I mean take the colour red - you cant get any more vibrant red than a 100% red pixel. And surely any computer sends 100% red to the monitor when it means to display a red pixel.

But after reading discussions about the how the spectrum display differs to an emulated spectrum display, and how best to emulate "faded" colours, I'm not so sure anymore.

ROWBEARTOE · Post by **ROWBEARTOE** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:23 am

Other than the sc1224 Atari monitors, my favorite display is probably the CGA IBM PC/XT monitor- very black and very vibrant. Both were 12" displays though. As far as them being "greyish", i'm not too sure, they are as black as any display I have now or have really scene. I've seen some monitors cheat with a flat screen cover to darken them though. Multisynce monitors have those annoying squares (as opposed to circles) which make low resolution look very blocky at 320x200. And most VGA monitors really don't have a nice reflective display which in my opinion makes pictures look a lot less impressive. But non glare is better for other things.

As far as signals being sent to a display from a computer, I can tell you I'm using a custom composite adaptor for my 8-Bit Atari which sends a signal very very very bright to my TV. So not sure what causes that, but it's so much brighter than any other thing I plug into it- including other game machines, or if I use the 8-Bit thru an RF. Duno. I do know the original ST monitors produce some of the best pictures I've ever seen anywhere. Playing Rayman and Tempest 2000 from the Jaguar on them is a real joy- They look amazing. If only I could hook up every game machine I have to them.

I am curious about this subject now. Monitors versus the machines and cables that send the signal.... I've noticed differn't game cards for PC's producing differn't color levels- but then again a monitor can adjust color just as much as the cards.

ROWBEARTOE · Post by **ROWBEARTOE** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:09 am

I wanted to see how well a PC with a 16 million color palette would convert 4,096 colors to 256. In this example the 512 color ST with Photochrome kicked VGA's butt! But not bad from a distance.

jd · Post by jd » Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:46 am

SC1224s are quite rare nowadays compared to SM124s which seem plentiful on ebay. I always remember how good the SC1224 looked in shops running demos, I particularly remember staring at how beautiful Elite looked on it.

Why they so rare compared to SM124s?

I will hopefully get one soonish.....if anyones selling......

ROWBEARTOE · Post by **ROWBEARTOE** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:35 am

jd wrote:SC1224s are quite rare nowadays compared to SM124s which seem plentiful on ebay. I always remember how good the SC1224 looked in shops running demos, I particularly remember staring at how beautiful Elite looked on it.

Why they so rare compared to SM124s?

I will hopefully get one soonish.....if anyones selling......

I have two SC1224! One for my Mega ST4 (JVC model) the other for my Atari Jaguar (goldstar).
Try these. =)

http://www.4jays.com
http://www.myatari.com
http://www.best-electronics-ca.com

jd · Post by jd » Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:56 am

ROWBEARTOE wrote:
jd wrote:SC1224s are quite rare nowadays compared to SM124s which seem plentiful on ebay. I always remember how good the SC1224 looked in shops running demos, I particularly remember staring at how beautiful Elite looked on it.

Why they so rare compared to SM124s?

I will hopefully get one soonish.....if anyones selling......
I have two SC1224! One for my Mega ST4 (JVC model) the other for my Atari Jaguar (goldstar).
Try these. =)

http://www.4jays.com
http://www.myatari.com
http://www.best-electronics-ca.com

thanks for the links, i forgot to mention that as i'm in the UK postage would cost a lottery win!!

ozy2000 · Post by **ozy2000** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 8:08 am

The best colours were with the Sony 14 inch portables circa 1986 in black and silver or all black or all white using RGB SCART cables for ST and Amiga stuff.

In the old days those Sony portables used identical tubes to the professional video monitors, the colour purity, sharpness of detail and convergence on the tube was amazing....a much better buy than any dedicated monitor Atari or Commodore or Philips or Thomson ever sold that's for sure, I should know I owned one of each in the same year after giving up on them all for the Sony.....which obviously doubled as a great TV for watching my Star Wars videos on as a teen too haha

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