The Apple II Palette
The Apple II had two palettes, one for the low-resolution graphics mode and one for the high-resolution mode. Getting into the details of Apple II graphics is out of the scope of this article -- the details are gnarly -- but using the AppleWin emulator and Photoshop, I have extracted the RGB values for both palettes, presented below.
Low-Resolution Graphics
The low-resolution mode had 16 distinct color values, numbered 0-15. Looking at the color values, it's not clear how they were derived, though an arbitrary lookup table is a safe bet. Two of the colors, 5 and 10, are both exactly the same shade of grey. A Photoshop ACT palette file is here
| 0 | Black | #000000 | 0, 0, 0 | ################ |
| 1 | Magenta | #930B7C | 147, 11, 124 | ################ |
| 2 | Dark Blue | #1F35D3 | 31, 53, 211 | ################ |
| 3 | Purple | #BB36FF | 187, 54, 255 | ################ |
| 4 | Dark Green | #00760C | 0, 118, 12 | ################ |
| 5 | Grey 1 | #7E7E7E | 126, 126, 126 | ################ |
| 6 | Medium Blue | #07A8E0 | 7, 168, 224 | ################ |
| 7 | Light Blue | #9DACFF | 157, 172, 255 | ################ |
| 8 | Brown | #624C00 | 98, 76, 0 | ################ |
| 9 | Orange | #F9561D | 249, 86, 29 | ################ |
| 10 | Grey 2 | #7E7E7E | 126, 126, 126 | ################ |
| 11 | Pink | #FF81EC | 255, 129, 236 | ################ |
| 12 | Light Green | #43C800 | 67, 200, 0 | ################ |
| 13 | Yellow | #DCCD16 | 220, 205, 22 | ################ |
| 14 | Aqua | #5DF784 | 93, 247, 132 | ################ |
| 15 | White | #FFFFFF | 255, 255, 255 | ################ |
High-Resolution Graphics
The high-res mode had even more peculiarities, not the least of which was that your choice of colors depended on whether the current column was odd or even. There are 8 numbered colors, but there are two blacks and two whites, so there are only six distinct colors. A Photoshop ACT palette file is here.
| 0 | Black 1 | #000000 | 0, 0, 0 | ################ |
| 1 | Green | #68E043 | 101, 226, 67 | ################ |
| 2 | Purple | #D660EF | 214, 96, 239 | ################ |
| 3 | White 1 | #FFFFFF | 255, 255, 255 | ################ |
| 4 | Black 2 | #000000 | 0, 0, 0 | ################ |
| 5 | Orange | #E6792E | 226, 114, 43 | ################ |
| 6 | Blue | #4BB8F1 | 75, 184, 241 | ################ |
| 7 | White 2 | #FFFFFF | 255, 255, 255 | ################ |