BBC BASIC Programmers' Reference

Colored text in the mainwin

by Richard Russell, May 2013

Liberty BASIC can only display black text on a white background in the mainwin. LB Booster, however, allows both the text and background colors to be changed. For example:

  !COLOR 15
  !COLOR 129
  print "White text on a red background"

Note that COLOR (or COLOUR) must be in capitals.

The color numbers which may be used are as follows:

Color	Foreground	Background
Black	0	128
Red	1	129
Green	2	130
Brown	3	131
Blue	4	132
Magenta	5	133
Cyan	6	134
Light gray	7	135
Dark gray	8	136
Bright red	9	137
Bright green	10	138
Yellow	11	139
Bright blue	12	140
Bright magenta	13	141
Bright cyan	14	142
White	15	143

If this selection of colors is not sufficient it is possible to redefine any of them to a specific RGB value, for example:

  !COLOR 1,200,200,255
  !COLOR 129
  print "Black text on a pale blue background"

Here color 1 (which is normally red) is redefined to be a pale blue, and then set as the background color.