High Resolution Mode
The high resolution mode on the C64 was 320x200 pixels, which would be considered low-resolution these days. The computer used a colour attribute system, which split the screen up into 40x25 columns of 8x8 pixel attribute squares. Each square could have two colours, a foreground and a background colour.

Not many artists used this mode as the 'hi-res' graphics tended to be a bit blurry on a TV, resulting in unsightly image artifacts, also without very careful drawing the dreaded 'colour clash' would rear its ugly head.

Because of the limits you had to minimise your use of colour, and  space out your coloured areas so they didn't interfere with each other, which resulted in either monochromatic pictures, or pictures with separated areas of distinct colour.

Most of the pictures on the C64 that used this mode were converted from the Sinclair Spectrum, which used a slightly lower resolution version of that mode.

Here's an example of a hi-res copy of one of my C64 pictures, drawn by an artist called 'Fish' on the Sinclair Spectrum.



Next Page: Multicolour Mode