On naming Bally/Astrocade colors
by Richard C. Degler
typed up 10/11/2019
 
 
Out of 16,777,216 colors a VGA monitor can display, we are limited to very few
independent combinations of Red, Blue and Green primary guns set from 0 to 255.
 
Colors are arranged in a palette (NOT a pallet) of 256 colors - in 32 Hues of
Intensities of 0 through 7 - the Bits often abbreviated hhhhhiii for each Byte.
The first 8 colors in the MAME palette are constricted to shades of Gray ...
having the same Red, Blue and Green values of decimal 0 - 255 (hex $00 - $FF.)
 
For reference, I started calling the different Intensities (or Luminescences) :
  0 (and $08) - "Darkest" for example : "Darkest Gray" better known as "Black"
  1 (and $09) - "Darker"                "Darker Gray"
  2 (and $0A) - "Dark"                  "Dark Gray"
  3 (and $0B) - "Dim"                   "Dim Gray"
  4 (and $0C) - (none)                  "Gray"
  5 (and $0D) - "Light"                 "Light Gray"
  6 (and $0E) - "Lighter"               "Lighter Gray"
  7 (and $0F) - "Lightest"              "Lightest Gray" should be true "White"
 
 
The Hues (aka Shades), which run from 1 to 31, are resistance-ladder controlled
by hardware into a Phase Shifted Chroma signal generated by the R.F. Modulator.
The idealized MAME (and MESS) R,B,G numbers are close, but not an exact match.
 
Using the Crayola crayon convention of Primary and Secondary colors, separated
(the 'A's sEpArAtE the 'E's) by Primary-Secondary and Secondary-Primary names,
gives us another 30 more Hue names, different from Paint or colored wax names :
  0 (hex from $00 to $07) - same "Gray" scale as noted above
  1 (hex from $08 to $0F) - "Violet-Blue" (note the shifted range)
  2 (hex from $10 to $17) - "Blue-Violet"
  3 (hex from $18 to $1F) - "Violet" tertiary hue
  4 (hex from $20 to $27) - "Magenta-Violet"
  5 (hex from $28 to $2F) - "Violet-Magenta"
  6 (hex from $30 to $37) - "Magenta" secondary hue
  7 (hex from $38 to $3F) - "Red-Magenta"
  8 (hex from $40 to $47) - "Magenta-Red"
  9 (hex from $48 to $4F) - "Red" primary hue
 10 (hex from $50 to $57) - "Orange-Red"
 11 (hex from $58 to $5F) - "Red-Orange"
 12 (hex from $60 to $67) - "Orange" tertiary hue
 13 (hex from $68 to $6F) - "Yellow-Orange"
 14 (hex from $70 to $77) - "Orange-Yellow"
 15 (hex from $78 to $7F) - "Yellow" secondary hue
 16 (hex from $80 to $87) - "Chartreuse-Yellow"
 17 (hex from $88 to $8F) - "Yellow-Chartreuse"
 18 (hex from $90 to $97) - "Chartreuse" tertiary hue
 19 (hex from $98 to $9F) - "Green-Chartreuse"
 20 (hex from $A0 to $A7) - "Chartreuse-Green"
 21 (hex from $A8 to $AF) - "Green" primary hue
 22 (hex from $B0 to $B7) - "Spring-Green"
 23 (hex from $B8 to $BF) - "Spring" quaternary hue
 24 (hex from $C0 to $C7) - "Spring-Cyan"
 25 (hex from $C8 to $CF) - "Cyan" secondary hue
 26 (hex from $D0 to $D7) - "Azure-Cyan"
 27 (hex from $D8 to $DF) - "Cyan-Azure"
 28 (hex from $E0 to $E7) - "Azure" tertiary hue
 29 (hex from $E8 to $EF) - "Blue-Azure"
 30 (hex from $F0 to $F7) - "Azure-Blue"
 31 (hex from $F8 to $FF) - "Blue" primary hue
 
"Violet", "Chartreuse", "Spring" and "Azure" blur into the Primaries near them.
Hyphenated Color-names can be read as "Violetish-Blue" or "Blueish-Violet" and
"Greenish-Chartreuse" or "Chartreusish-Green" if that helps you remember them.
 
 
Combining standard Intensity names with the Hue names puts us on the same page.
Calling "Lightest Red" as "Pink" or "Darker Yellow" as "Brown" does not help !
 
 

Let's use this,
balMISC DOCSly