MrGibson's Atari Home

This is a how to on the use of GRAPHIC, SETCOLOR, COLOR, and POKE statements with Atari Basic

NOTE:
Atari's CTIA graphic chip can produce 128 colors.
Atari's GTIA graphic chip can produce 256 colors.
Both chips accomplish this with 16 based hues or colors. For example, 16 hues and 8 luminances for 128 colors.

The GRAPHIC statement sets the graphic mode.
example:
100 GRAPHIC 0
will set the graphic mode to 0.

                                 Base
    Graphics Mode   Antic Mode   Colors   Resolution   Display mode
    0               2            2         40 x 24     Text
    1               6            5         20 x 24     Text
    2               7            5         20 x 12     Text
    3               8            4         40 x 24     Graphics
    4               9            2         80 x 48     Graphics
    5               A            4         80 x 48     Graphics
    6               B            2        160 x 96     Graphics
    7               D            4        160 x 96     Graphics
    8               F            2        320 x 192    Graphics
    9               -            16        80 x 192    Graphics
    10              -            9         80 x 192    Graphics
    11              -            16        80 x 192    Graphics
    12              4            5         40 x 24     Text
    13              5            5         40 x 12     Text
    14              C            2        160 x 192    Graphics
    15              E            4        160 x 192    Graphics

The SETCOLOR and COLOR are two primary BASIC statements that are used in color editing in Atari graphics.

The SETCOLOR statement is used to define the colors which will appear on the screen.

SE. is the abbreviation for SETCOLOR and may be used to enter the statement, even within a program line.
As an example, try entering this line using the SETCOLOR and GRAPHICS abbreviations as follows:

100 GR. 0:SE.2,8,6

Format of SETCOLOR or SE. statement. The first number is the color register, the second number is the hue, and the last number is the luminance. There are 16 hues to choose from and 8 luminances for each hue. Color Numbers

   HUE
   Number   Color
   0        Gray
   1        Gold
   2        Orange
   3        Red-Orange
   4        Pink
   5        Violet
   6        Purple Blue
   7        Blue
   8        Light Blue
   9        Blue-Green
  10        Turquoise
  11        Green-Blue
  12        Green
  13        Yellow-Green
  14        Orange-Green
  15        Light Orange