Expanding Colors
In text mode, the blinking attribute effect is enabled by default, giving sixteen colors available for the foreground but only eight for the character cell background. By disabling the blinking effect, all 16 colors available can be used for both the background and the foreground of every character cell.
Creatively making use of the three shaded block characters 176 (B0h) ░ (25% halftone), 177 (B1h) ▒ (50% halftone) and 178 (B2h) ▓ (75% halftone) in the CP437 character set, one can achieve some interesting color combinations with the limited palette.
With the EGA and the VGA the color palette can be expanded from the original fixed 16-color CGA palette to 16 out of 64 colors (EGA palette) or 16 out of 262,144 colors (VGA palette), allowing smoother color transitions.
Read more about this topic: Text Mode Demos
Famous quotes containing the words expanding and/or colors:
“In expanding the field of knowledge, we but increase the horizon of ignorance.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Then, bringing me the joy we feel when wee see a work by our favorite painter which differs from any other that we know, or if we are led before a painting of which we have until then only seen a pencil sketch, if a musical piece heard only on the piano appears before us clothed in the colors of the orchestra, my grandfather called me the [hawthorn] hedge at Tansonville, saying, “You who are so fond of hawthorns, look at this pink thorn, isn’t it lovely?””
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)