This article is a list of the color palettes for notable computer graphics, terminals and video game console hardware.
Only a sample and the palette's name are given here. More specific articles are linked from the name of each palette, for the test charts, samples, simulated images, and further technical details (including references).
In the past, manufacturers have developed many different display systems in a competitive, non-collaborative basis (with a few exceptions, as the VESA consortium), creating many proprietary, non-standard different instances of display hardware. Often, as with early personal and home computers, a given machine employed its unique display subsystem, with its also unique color palette. Also, software developers had made use of the color abilities of distinct display systems in many different ways. The result is that there is no single common standard nomenclature or classification taxonomy which can encompass every computer color palette.
In order to organize the material, color palettes have been grouped following arbitrary but rational criteria. First, generic monochrome and full RGB repertories common to various computer display systems. Second, usual color repertories used for display systems that employ indexed color techniques. And finally, specific manufacturers' color palettes implemented in many representative early personal computers and videogame consoles of various brands.
The list for personal computer palettes is split into two categories: 8-bit and 16-bit machines. This is not intended as a true strict categorization of such machines, because mixed architectures also exist (16-bit processors with an 8-bit data bus or 32-bit processors with a 16-bit data bus, among others). The distinction is based more on broad 8-bit and 16-bit computer ages or generations (around 1975–1985 and 1985–1995, respectively) and their associated state of the art in color display capabilities.
Here is the common color test chart and sample image used to render every palette in this series of articles:
{ | style="border-style: none" border="0" |- || || |}
See further details in the summary paragraph of the corresponding article.
List of monochrome and RGB palettes
For the purpose of this article, the term monochrome palette means a set of intensities for a monochrome display, and the term RGB palette is defined as the complete set of combinations a given RGB display can offer by mixing all the possible intensities of the red, green, and blue primaries available in its hardware.
These are generic complete repertories of colors to produce black and white and RGB color pictures by the display hardware, not necessarily the total number of such colors that can be simultaneously displayed in a given text or graphic mode of any machine. RGB is the most common method to produce colors for displays; so these complete RGB color repertories have every possible combination of R-G-B triplets within any given maximum number of levels per component.
For specific hardware and different methods to produce colors than RGB, see the List of computer hardware palettes and the List of video game consoles sections.
For various software arrangements and sorts of colors, including other possible full RGB arrangements within 8-bit depth displays, see the List of software palettes section.
Monochrome palettes
These palettes only have some shades of gray.
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! scope="row" style="width: 50px;" | Bits
| Monochrome (1-bit)black and white
| 2-bit grayscale22 = 4 levels of gray
| 4-bit grayscale24 = 16 levels of gray
| 8-bit grayscale28 = 256 levels of gray
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! scope="row" style="width: 150px;" | No dithering
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! scope="row" style="width: 150px;" | Floyd–Steinberg dithering
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Dichrome palettes
Each permuted pair of red, green, and blue (16-bit color palette, with 65,536 colors). For example, "additive red green" has zero blue and "subtractive red green" has full blue.
{ | style="border-style: none" border="0" ! scope="row" | Colors | 16-bit Red Green | 16-bit Red Blue | 16-bit Green Blue |- ! scope="row" | Additive | | | |- ! scope="row" | Subtractive | | | |}