[Coco] Hidden 256-color mode

[Roger Taylor]

At 06:02 AM 7/26/2005, you wrote:

>I'm still keen to know if the prototype was designed to support 256 colors 

>at the RGB output stages. This would at least tell us if the mode can be 

>seen with an RGB monitor or if it could possibly only be visible with a 

>composite output (which may explain why it's been hard to find since most 

>CoCo3 users nowadays are running RGB monitors).

>

>Nickolas Marentes



Still, it seems that 1 byte per pixel would be required which would throw 
the RGB monitor into another video mode even if the colors don't appear 
correctly.

I suspect that the mode invoked by holding down F2 while hitting RESET has 
something to do with the undocumented/hidden 256-color mode.  I see no 
useful purpose for this blue shade video.  Maybe a missing color component 
is mixed in somehow to give a new color range.  Who knows?  Think about 
it... they put in the 3 Mugateers picture and made IT visible by holding 
down CTRL-ALT-RESET, so it seems logical that the same method of hiding 
something was also used to help hide the 256-color mode.





-- 
Roger Taylor