Matthew Hipkin

Giving more colour to your ZX Spectrum!

If the world wide web was a thing in the 1980s, my codeLib would probably look something like this....

The ZX Spectrum has some lovely vibrant colours, but what if you want to use something else?

Well, there is a cheeky way of getting other colours (in a limited fashion). For this example I have chosen the colour orange, because why not?

First up we are going to need a UDG!

10 FOR a=0 TO 7 STEP 2
20 POKE USR "P"+a,BIN 10101010
30 POKE USR "P"+a,BIN 01010101
40 NEXT a

If you haven't guessed by now we're going to use the checkered pattern with different PAPER and INK settings to give the effect of a different colour. So let's draw a big orange square on the screen!

50 FOR x=0 to 9
60 FOR y=0 to 9
70 PRINT AT x,y; PAPER 6; INK 2;CHR$ 159
80 NEXT y
90 NEXT x

Et voilà! If it's not quite orange enough, try altering the tuning on your TV so it's just a little bit out.

Why not try experimenting with giving your Speccy some more colours?

Posted in retro on 2019-04-06 22:08:12

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