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I have run x11 in 16-color and 256-color mode, but it was not fun. The palette would get swapped when changing windows, which was quite disorienting. Hardware that could do 16-bit color was common by the late 90s.

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Fun thing - SGI specifically used 256 color mode a lot, to reduce memory usage even if you used 24bit outputs. So long as you used defaults of their Motif fork, everything you didn't specifically request to use more colors would use 256 color visuals which then were composited in hardware.

Much better to stick to 1 bit per pixel. :-)

Like in Sun SPARCStation ELC. No confusing colors or shades.

1bpp (at low resolution) is still relevant today on epaper screens, though some of them now allow for shades of grey or even color.

Most aren't all that low res either... 300dpi is standard.

But what if it's a UTF8 bit? Then it'd be 2 bits.

Which proves time travel exists, all those "two bits" references in old Westerns.

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