Spectrum Computing

Wow [mention]Ersh[/mention],

They are certainly big differences.

For reference; and do keep in mind that these photos aren't scientific in any way (it's a smartphone camera capture of a CRT after all). Here's the same screen taken on my 1084. First screen is with the monitor at 50% colour saturation, the second at 100%.

Now it doesn't necessarily look that close to colorode in these photos, but it's a much better fit with the naked eye. Also if you'd apply a CRT filter (hanover bars, scanlines etc) when taking a screenshot with an emulator, it comes notably closer.

PeterJ wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 4:41 pm They are certainly big differences.

Sure are.

catmeows wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 10:24 am Look here: https://lospec.com/palette-list

IMHO:

When you browse the palette list, you quickly realize that universal 16 color palette is rather impossible.

I see there some are much better than the others to represent the real world in games and pixel art instead of "covering the color spectrum quite well" (who the hell ever needs that for home computer except Sir Clive who, as we know, hated video games). Anyway, my picks are:
https://lospec.com/palette-list/arq16
https://lospec.com/palette-list/arne-16
https://lospec.com/palette-list/dawnbringer-16
https://lospec.com/palette-list/fzt-ethereal-16
https://lospec.com/palette-list/fun16
https://lospec.com/palette-list/optimum
https://lospec.com/palette-list/ultima-vi-sharp-x68000
https://lospec.com/palette-list/zeitgeist16
OTOH the poor Spectrum has no proper colors for blue sky, skin tones, steel, clay, wood etc, while getting extra almost useless cyan and magenta.

PeterJ wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 4:23 pm @Joefish mentioned the 87 screenshots double page in the Sinclair ZX Spectrum And Commodore 64 Book 2012. If you can get hold of a copy, it is well worth the investment. I know which I prefer, but I can see the beauty in both.

There is a version here, but the scan quality does not give it justice.

https://archive.org/details/Sinclair_ZX ... 2/mode/2up

I think it was quite brave doing a ZX & C64 double magazine.

This is the Spectrum one:



and this is the C64 one:

Thanks for the link Peter, great book indeed.
Assuming the author took these screenshots in the same or similar conditions, there really isn’t too much difference or at least to me, the colors don’t look washed out.
It seems, that screenshots from various sources and types of palettes can make quite a difference.

I made a mistake in the screenshot collage, here's the correct colodore. Sorry about that.

Ersh wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 7:47 pm

I made a mistake in the screenshot collage, here's the correct colodore. Sorry about that.

Sorry but I think this "fixed" palette still looks mostly brown and purple!

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 8:20 pm Sorry but I think this "fixed" palette still looks mostly brown and purple!

That might well be. The point was; there are different palettes in circulation, none of them entirely correct. On my 1084 I can see a slight orange tint to a few colours, which may explain the "brown" argument. There may be a slight hint of purple in the light blue as well. In my opinion it's not that bad, and if the overall saturation is too washed out, simply crank that colour wheel to eleven.

If you hook the c64 up to a TV, the colours are of course dependent on the set. The 1084 is just my personal benchmark.

After all, it seems that the differences between NTSC and PAL C64, definitely have an impact on the color palette.
I think this interesting article explains that pretty well:
http://hitmen.c02.at/temp/palstuff/

Lethargeek wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 5:22 pm

catmeows wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 10:24 am Look here: https://lospec.com/palette-list

IMHO:

When you browse the palette list, you quickly realize that universal 16 color palette is rather impossible.

I see there some are much better than the others to represent the real world in games and pixel art instead of "covering the color spectrum quite well" (who the hell ever needs that for home computer except Sir Clive who, as we know, hated video games).

You missed the point. I never said the Spectrum's specific choice of color tones was "right". On the contrary, I mentioned it has a serious flaw: there's no meaningful difference between bright and non-bright colors. They are not different color tones, just slightly darker versions of exactly the same colors. It means the Spectrum palette only has 8 colors in practice! You can try it yourself: load any Spectrum screenshot into ZX-Paintbrush, then remove all brightness. It will look basically the same.

But my exact point was that, when a general purpose computer can only have a very small fixed palette, it works much better to chose a wide variety of colors spread over the color spectrum, regardless of what specific colors were chosen.

The link you mentioned illustrates this point quite well. In pixel art, a small palette that's mostly different tones of brown and purple, could be great to provide a unique atmosphere for a certain level of a game. However it's not such a great idea to keep using these colors for an entire game. And it's a terrible idea to always use only these colors for absolutely everything, all the time.

The book images that Peter posted clearly show more graphic variety in Spectrum screens, despite using essentially half the palette size.

Out of curiosity, here's how the Spectrum palette would look like with 16 truly distinct colors:



At the center is the real Spectrum palette.

At the top, I kept the 8 original non-bright Spectrum colors, then added another 8 exactly intermediate colors between them.

At the bottom, I kept the 8 original bright Spectrum colors, then added another 8 exactly intermediate colors between them.

Both new palettes are almost identical because, as I said before, the Spectrum palette only has 8 colors really.

Instead of FLASH and BRIGHT attributes, the Spectrum could simply use 4 bits for INK color and 4 bits for PAPER color. Absolutely everything else would work exactly the same, but the graphics would have improved dramatically...

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 5:26 am You missed the point.

No.

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 5:26 am But my exact point was that, when a general purpose computer can only have a very small fixed palette, it works much better to chose a wide variety of colors spread over the color spectrum, regardless of what specific colors were chosen.

And that was exactly what i disagreed with. The specific colors choice corresponding to most common real world objects does matter much more than wide distribution of these colors over the whole spectrum.

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 5:26 am The link you mentioned illustrates this point quite well.

No, it was about the examples i picked there to illustrate the importance of specific choice of colors for an "universal" fixed palette.

also even the standard existing spectrum palette could be improved a bit with uneven brightness for different colors:




text becomes more readable, pictures less flat, more natural
almost any pic becomes better with this palette imo

this is why i use it in my emulator as a default

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:00 am Out of curiosity, here's how the Spectrum palette would look like with 16 truly distinct colors:

These look great indeed. I like how you (probably) spent a minute to move the letters of the word "Spectrum" back to their proper positions. Offtopic fun fact: The original picture of various colour palettes you posted a few pages back, where it said "Sprectrum", was posted by the infamous MacDeath who frequently badmouths the Speccy mostly on the CPCWiki forums but also in YouTube comments. He's the final boss in Oilboy 5, if you remember that game title ... so "Sprectrum" was definitely not a typo.

I love the fat cat at the bottom [mention]Lethargeek[/mention]! Is that a loading screen from a game or just art?

My first Spectrum was a Timex and probably because of the NTSC the color palette was definitely different. I remember a green tinted "cyan" and more warm "red" that looked fantastic on Deathchase.
On top of that, all levels of bright were visible, including the bright black, and because of that some screens and games looked funny. I'm still looking for an emulator that can recreate both.

The pallette Lethargeek shows above is interesting, because fully saturated colors look bad on a CRT TV, pretty sure most of us always played with more comfortable colors.

druellan wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 12:11 pm My first Spectrum was a Timex and probably because of the NTSC the color palette was definitely different. I remember a green tinted "cyan" and more warm "red" that looked fantastic on Deathchase.
On top of that, all levels of bright were visible, including the bright black, and because of that some screens and games looked funny. I'm still looking for an emulator that can recreate both.

ZXEmuT can emulate "bright black". it is also technically possible to replace the default palette with Tcl API. so the only two things you need is GNU/Linux for ZXEmuT, and proper RGB values. ;-)

PeterJ wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 11:49 am I love the fat cat at the bottom @Lethargeek! Is that a loading screen from a game or just art?

it's a scene from the old russian cartoon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8BmL1ZDc-U

Lethargeek wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 8:48 am also even the standard existing spectrum palette could be improved a bit with uneven brightness for different colors:

Remember that these machines have analog TV outputs, and TV signals are not RGB - they are based on luminance, chroma and saturation.
And the palete does vary along luminance

If you have perfect electronics and a perfectly calibrated screen then yes, you get equal brightness.
But in practice CRTs are not calibrated, with most people just setting them to whatever looks better, and that would make the brightness differences visible.

And of course colours would mix horizontally (especially on RF connections), since colour resolution is lower than the actual pixels.
That would also reduce saturation.
So your palette is a good approximation to what was seen back in the day.


(Sorry for the late comment but I've been in places with no internet or mobile network!)

4thRock wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 3:53 pm Remember that these machines have analog TV outputs, and TV signals are not RGB

late Spectrum models got RGB and many (if not most) even 48k soviet clones were RGB-only

4thRock wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 3:53 pm If you have perfect electronics and a perfectly calibrated screen then yes, you get equal brightness.
But in practice CRTs are not calibrated, with most people just setting them to whatever looks better, and that would make the brightness differences visible.

brightness differences between the primary color components, thus affecting several palette colors at once

4thRock wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 3:53 pm And of course colours would mix horizontally (especially on RF connections), since colour resolution is lower than the actual pixels.
That would also reduce saturation.

color resolution is irrelevant as we're talking brightness

4thRock wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 3:53 pm So your palette is a good approximation to what was seen back in the day.

no, as i said, it was impossible to tweak the relative brightness for the each color separately with just TV settings

Lethargeek wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 7:35 pm late Spectrum models got RGB and many (if not most) even 48k soviet clones were RGB-only

Well, I only had a good RGB capable TV in the late 2000s. I doubt many people used anything other than RF.
So my comments are about regular RF connections on late 1980's TV.

Here's a capture from real hardware (at 1:25). Don't know if it's RF or composite video, but it's PAL signal:
https://youtu.be/SrXFNqxPUHw?t=84

Colours are still bright and saturated, but little differences have appeared.
For example, on the boat Yellow is about #E3E300; on the sky Cyan is #52FFFF, etc.

My point is that both systems looked good back in the day.
They took advantage of existing tech, and the user would optimize the TV settings to get the best picture.

4thRock wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 11:33 pm Well, I only had a good RGB capable TV in the late 2000s.

So what? Almost none of the soviet TVs did have RGB input either. People were needed to add it themselves or to call a service technician.

4thRock wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 11:33 pm Here's a capture from real hardware (at 1:25). Don't know if it's RF or composite video, but it's PAL signal:

this looks too good to be RF, but too bad for RGB i remember (and since the title says +3/+2A maybe a composite mod?)

4thRock wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 11:33 pm They took advantage of existing tech, and the user would optimize the TV settings to get the best picture.

as i said, very limited and rough "optimizations"
just can't get some color combos to become more readable without breaking the other ones

Hi

My computers during the 8 bit golden age were a speccy clone, - the Timex TC2048 and the C64.

I find so silly the wars between the difference scenes, specially these days. I love all retro computers and now I own not only those two I mentioned above but others too.

Regarding the Commodore colours as an amateur artist I think the palette was very well thought out, it works very well in general but it wouldn't have hurt to an optional palette with some full saturated colours!I think the colodore palette is the closest to the real thing and as someone else has mentioned we always could intensify or mute the colours according to our taste using the TV or CRT monitor settings. Regarding the 320x200 hires mode, it was not that much used it is true but it not only had higher resolution than the Speccy but also regarding the attributes it was a bit more advanced as it allowed any of the 16 colours as ink or paper (perhaps this was mentioned before but I didn't read all of the thread yet).

I like coding games for retro computers and one of my latest projects is Patolas' Adventures #1 and on the C64 it is looking like this:
[media]https://youtu.be/3EqQf9mjv1c[/media]

And I just love how it looks, this video capture was taken from an emulator using the colodore palette. What do you think?

I also have been working on two mock ups one for the Speccy 48k :

and the other for the Timex Hicolour mode:


I love how the game looks on the 3 computers, each one has its strengths.

Please take a look at the NIRVANA+ Engine. In a standard Speccy 48K, instead of this:



you will be able to have something like this:

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:51 pm Please take a look at the NIRVANA+ Engine. In a standard Speccy 48K, instead of this:

Thanks for the suggestion!