Amber and orange are hard colors to pin down

March 9, 2025 2:10 PM

I have collected here many (85) color palettes of Retro CRTs, LCDs, CROs, VFDs, Nixie Tubes, Numitrons, Calculators, Terminals, and Computers (in text mode). Most of these are high contrast and are easy to read. When configuring software on modern PCs (such as your text editor, email client, etc.) or when creating web pages (in HTML, CSS), or other types of documents (graphics), you can use these color palettes to mostly relive displays of the past on today's high resolution flat panel displays.
posted by chavenet (9 comments total)

Wow, some of those palettes gave me unexpected (and slightly harrowing) flashbacks from my early career.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:45 PM on March 9 [3 favorites]

I have to say, it's somewhat disappointing to see that most of these are done in that 12-bit colour space that we used to stick to for 16-bit-clean colours back in the day. And yet, this isn't the first site to suggest that an accurate replica doesn't need full 24-bit precision.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:56 PM on March 9 [2 favorites]

I stick with #FFFFFF and #000000 in the terminal since anything else messes with my NetHack game...
posted by jim in austin at 6:26 PM on March 9 [3 favorites]

It's nice to have these referenced and collected all in one place like this. I'm amazed at how much emotional context monochrome text is able to evoke in me. Some of these are soothing.

♫♪ Whoa, #CC6600 is the color of your CRT
Whoa, shades of gold displayed electronically ♫♪
posted by Avelwood at 7:02 PM on March 9 [2 favorites]

Thanks for posting! I have an appreciation for this sort of detail.
posted by MrGuilt at 8:03 PM on March 9 [1 favorite]

Part of the reason that these colours are so approximate is that there were loads of factors involved in the actual appearance of your screen. The age of the tube, the current being sent to it, whether it's bold or normal, heck there was even a dial on the side of most displays to let you tune how strong the beam should be. Often you'd dial it up until you saw the raster pattern, and then ease off until the background went "black" again. And you may have to do this a couple times a day to adjust for varying ambient light circumstances.

And the hues would shift as intensity rose, on some of these. Often the brighter amber/green intensities would tend toward yellow more, and the dimmer display would tend slightly toward red or blue, respectively. The particular performance curves on these phosphors is something you can't capture in a simple RGB colour code.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 2:26 AM on March 10 [2 favorites]

Good post.
posted by Wolfdog at 3:52 AM on March 10

If you really want to lean in to phosphor glow and raster lines, then pop some of these colors in to Cool Retro Term! It's customizable so you can pick and choose what features you want to emulate and how strong the effect should be. MacOS and Linux only, DOS fans gnash your teeth in despair.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:04 AM on March 10 [2 favorites]

I love stuff like this. An invaluable resource, for sure.
posted by grubi at 11:11 AM on March 10