Atari XL User Manual

CHAPTER 12
CHARACTERS
Up to now all the displays we have created have
comprised light blue characters on a dark blue
background. You will probably be aware that the
XL is capable of more impressive displays than
this, and the following four chapters will explain
how to make the most of the graphics potential of
your computer.
CHANGING COLOURS
The XL is able to display 16 primary colours, and
you can choose anyone of these to be the screen or
border colour using a BASIC command
SETCOLOR
The syntax of the command is:
SETCOLOR R,C,L
The three parameters specify the register or store
location into which we want to place colour
information, the code specifying the colour we
require, and the luminance, or brightness, of the
colour.
COLOUR REGISTERS
The XL reserves five memory locations for storing
colour information and these colour registers are
numbered 0 to 4. The colour of the screen is
controlled by the contents of register 2, so to change
105

Atari XL Specifications

General

Brand	Atari
Model	XL
Category	Desktop
Language	English