There was a post on Macintosh Garden that I read awhile back in which someone wanted to know what games would run under 16 colors. I knew of Falcon MC as one. Then a commentator replied that after a certain OS, the options for black and white, 4 colors, 4 greys, 16 colors and 16 greys were removed. Might have been 8.5 or 8.6.
Would anybody be able find out for me? I fired up a borrowed PM G3 but even under 8.1 it only has 256 colors minimum. A 1400 series PowerBook should be old enough to have the option.
Could be, I would be inclined to believe you, because otherwise the PM G3 would have those options in 8.1.
But we still won't find out for sure until someone can help us in the software department! I have a IIci on hand but that's too old (will have it) but it also maxes out at 7.6.1.
Unless I'm seriously mistaken, a 1400c should handle this investigation nicely.
You actually can install and run 8.0 and 8.1 on 32-bit clean '030 Macs if they have enough RAM, the instructions here are what I followed to get it going in the emulation: http://home.earthlink.net/~gamba2/os8_68030.html
Hopefully someone with a 1400c can also check though.
The video card driver (typically in the nubus card's declrom, or pci equivalent for PCI machines) advertises the video modes it supports, which is the basis for the information displayed in the monitors control panel.
The driver is normally part of the video card's ROM on NuBus and OldWorld PCI Macs. OS updates obviously don't touch it, which is why some cards only work up to a certain OS version.