On 9 Jul 2009 at 10:59, Demian Ferreiro wrote: > Hi. > > I'm doing a little terminal-based game project and I was considering using > pdcurses to make it cross-plataform (initially it used borland's conio.h in > windows, but I've moved to linux now...). Note: the project is linked to > pdcurses in windows, but uses ncurses in linux. > > In Linux, however, I recently discovered that it was quite easy to get a 256 > configurable-color terminal, instead of the 8 color, non configurable-color > terminal that most linux distributions are shipped with: > $ export TERM="xterm-256color" > > So I wanted to know if there is any way I could get 256 colors in the > windows terminal or some way to emulate it. I've tested the win32 and the > SDL ports of pdcurses with a little test program that informs about the > color capabilities and prints the different colors and in both cases the > output is the same: 16 colors and can_change_color() == TRUE. > > I think this is reasonable with the win32 port, but I see no reason why the > SDL port should have this values. Anyone knows if the win32 console API > provides a way to get more than 16 simultaneous colors? And if that is the > case, might it be possible to change the win32 pdcurses library, or the SDL > one, in order to use that? (I have no problem to help with the code, I just > want to know from a pdcurses developer, or someone who is familiar with the > code, if this would be possible or not..).
I'm not certain this is the right answer, but I recall that DOS only supported 16 colors, divided into two shades each of 8 colors. I suspect that the current Windows console API is limited to supporting DOS color compatibility. If you open a console window and type "help color" or "color /?" you'll see the DOS/Windows color scheme. The "color" command is the DOS/Windows command line command for manipulating console window color. I seem to recall that more colors were possible under DOS with the appropriate graphics cards, but 16 colors was the base VGA color capability that the OS supported - with other schemes being device dependent. However, this is all a dim memory for me. Someone else can probably give a better answer. > > Well, this tourned to be a pretty long mail, sorry for that, and for my bad > english as well =P Your English is excellent! I wish I spoke any second language as well as you speak (or at least write) English. -- Alan Meyer AM Systems, Inc. Randallstown, MD USA vrme...@comcast.net
