Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!ece-csc!mcnc!xanth!nic.MR.NET!tank!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxg.cso.uiuc.edu!uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald
From: mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Simulating Gray-Scale on VGA Color
Message-ID: <45900170@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 26 Oct 88 15:19:00 GMT
References: <3707@peora.ccur.com>
Lines: 17
Nf-ID: #R:peora.ccur.com:3707:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:45900170:000:820
Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald    Oct 26 10:19:00 1988


>This might be a stupid question, but I was wondering if  it  might  be
>possible  to  simulate  gray-scale  on  a  VGA  color monitor.  It you
>display white on a VGA monitor by using the same intensities  of  red,
>green  and  blue, then it seems to me that if you decrease them all by
>the same amount, then you get a less intense white.  If I remember the
>VGA  spec right, at 640x480 you get to select 16 colors from a palette
>of 16 million, with a byte apiece for Red, Green,  and  Blue.  If  you
>used  F0F0F0  for  one  color, then E0E0E0, for the next etc., then it
>seems to me that this would give you 16  levels  of  gray,  in  effect
>simulating a monochrome display.


>So can anybody tell me if this idea makes sense?

Yes, it works perfectly. If you can use the 320x200 mode you get 64
shades of gray.