iMacs that go to Black & White?

[returningmacuser]

I've been thinking about this for a little while now, and it seems to me that in my old Elementary school, there were candy iMacs that could go all the way down to Black & White. I know this, because I remember playing a Muppet-themed educational game in school which repeatedly asked to be taken down to 16 colors, and the iMac went down every time I clicked OK. I also remember seeing a Black & White option in the control strip.

Perhaps this was a school-only version of the iMac, or possibly an upgrade card that allowed this?

I'd like to know if anybody here has seen or heard about these computers, and if they actually exist. I'd sure want one.

 

[LCGuy]

Are you sure? I don't think I've ever seen any PCI based Mac that could go down to 16 colors or B&W. The lowest you can go is 256 greys.

 

[Mike Richardson]

I always thought it had something to do with the VRAM. If you had too much VRAM you could not take the Mac down to black and white.

I think the cutoff was 2 MB. I remember that my Power Macintosh 6500 (with ATI 2 MB graphics) could go down to B/W. The very first iMacs also had ATI 2 MB graphics and so could probably go down to B/W as well.

For some reason, I remember taking my Power Macintosh 6500 down to black and white, but I also remember that I could not play SimCity Classic on there because it could not go down to 16 colors. I'm not sure why I have these conflicting memories.

 

[Mike Richardson]

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA34941

Question #8, pertains to 7500/8500

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA33978

Question #13, PM 9500

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA34662

Question #11, PM 7200

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA31863

Pertaining to x100 systems using the PDS video card

The reason I remember B/W on my PM 6500 is that I was really remembering it on my PM 6100 (both ran OS 8.6 at the time). I used HDI-45 video so that's how I got the extra choices.

Unfortunately you just need a very old Mac to run programs at less than 256 colors.

 

[~Coxy]

I remember a lot of old games used to come with both B&W and Colour binaries, and on Power Macintoshes you would often have to run the B&W version in order not to get graphicsl corruption.

Vette! and Civ I come to mind as having this problem. The extension "CivHack FAT" can be used to allow the colour version to run without issue for both games.

 

[Mars478]

My Clamshell iBook BlueBerry can go down to 256greys only. Its runnning OS 9.

 

[Gorgonops]

Just as a useless note, SheepShaver will let you go down to 16/4 colors and B&W. On a PPC machine it runs using native CPU, thus it's potentially a more useful option then "Classic" to run really ancient software as long as said software doesn't poke the hardware too intimately. (Said software would probably crash a real Power Mac anyway.)

I wonder if the initial poster is remembering using a 5200-series all-in-one. Never used one myself, but since their motherboard was basically a Quadra with a PPC upgrade shoehorned in I'd imagine they supported B&W.

 

[thinkdifferent]

I remember my iMac asking to go down to 16 colors, so I know that's possible. I never used grays on the iMac, but it could be possible to go down to 16 grays.

 

[Mike Richardson]

I remember my iMac asking to go down to 16 colors, so I know that's possible. I never used grays on the iMac, but it could be possible to go down to 16 grays.

The iMac simply does not support 16 colors. Here is my theory concerning perhaps some programs that "require" 16 colors:

1. The game checks if you are in 16 color mode.

2. An iMac is never in such a mode, so it asks you if it's OK to switch to 16 colors.

3. The game attempts to switch to 16 colors. QuickDraw receives this request and changes to the nearest choice available (256 colors) instead. You see the screen flash as this happens, thinking it has now gone into 16 colors mode.

4. The game only knows that some screen change occurred. It does not check if the monitor is now really in 16 colors. Perhaps QuickDraw does not send back an error in this instance, or the game does not even check for the error!

5. The game proceeds to run, except more slowly than if 16 color mode had been available. Because the iMac is so fast compared to the Macs available when the game was first released, this slowdown goes unnoticed.