VIC-II Color Registers

The VIC-II chip in the Commodore 64 uses several color registers to define the colors used in various display modes and for sprites. Here's an overview of the main color registers:

Register	Address	Description
Background Color 0	$D021 (53281)	Main background color
Background Color 1	$D022 (53282)	Used in multi-color text mode
Background Color 2	$D023 (53283)	Used in multi-color text mode
Background Color 3	$D024 (53284)	Used in multi-color text mode
Border Color	$D020 (53280)	Color of the screen border
Sprite Multi-color 0	$D025 (53285)	First shared color for multi-color sprites
Sprite Multi-color 1	$D026 (53286)	Second shared color for multi-color sprites

Color Palette

Click on a color to set the background color:

Color Demo

How to use:

• Click on a color in the palette to change the background color.
• The demo area shows how different elements (text, sprites, etc.) look against the chosen background.
• In actual C64 programming, you would use POKE commands to set these registers.

Example BASIC commands:

REM Set background color to red
POKE 53281, 2

REM Set border color to yellow
POKE 53280, 7

REM Set sprite multi-color 0 to green
POKE 53285, 5