List of color palettes

This article is a list of the color palettes for notable computer graphics, terminals and video game consoles hardware.

Only a sample and the palette's name are given here. More specific articles are linked from the name of each palette, for the test charts, samples, simulated images, and further technical details (including references).

Along years, manufacturers had developed many different display systems in a competitive, non-collaborative basis (with a few exceptions, as the VESA consortium), creating many proprietary, non-standard different display hardware. Often, as with early personal and home computers, a given machine employed its unique display subsystem, with its also unique color palette. Also, software developers had been made use of the color abilities of distinct display systems in many different ways. The result is that there is no single common standard nomenclature or classification taxonomy which can encompass every computer color palette.

In order to organize the material, color palettes has been grouped following arbitrary but rational criteria. First, generic monochrome and full RGB repertories common to various computer display systems. Second, usual color repertories used for display systems that employ indexed color techniques. And finally, specific manufacturer's color palettes implemented in many representative early personal computers and videogame consoles of various brands.

The list for personal computer palettes is split into two categories: 8-bit and 16-bit machines. This is not intended as a true strict categorization of such machines, due to mixed architectures also exists (16-bit processors with 8-bit data bus or 32-bit processors with 16-bit data bus, among others). The distinction is more related with broad 8-bit and 16-bit computer "ages" or "generations" (around 1975-1985 and 1985-1995, respectively) and their associated state of the art in color display capabilities.

Here is the common color test chart and sample image used to render every unique palette in this series of articles:

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Non-regular RGB palettes

:These are also RGB palettes, in the sense defined above (except for the 4-bit RGBI, which has an intensity bit that affects all channels at once), but either they do not have the same number of levels for each primary channel, or the numbers are not powers of two, so are not represented as separate bit fields. All of these have been used in popular personal computers.

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Other common uses of software palettes

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List of videogame consoles palettes

:::"Main article: List of videogame consoles palettes"

Color palettes of some of the most popular videogame consoles. The criteria are the same that of the List of computer hardware palettes section.

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ee also

*Palette (computing)
*Indexed color
*Color Lookup Table
*Color depth
*Computer display
*List of home computers by video hardware
*Web colors
*X11 color names