This page records some of the associations between various numbers, letters of the alphabet, and colours that occur in my mind. I must mention here that I do not have synaesthesia. Nevertheless, many of these associations are deeply ingrained in my mind due to childhood experiences I've had while learning computers and various mnemonic systems.
| Number | Colour | Sound |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Black | /s/, /z/ |
| 1 | Blue | /t/, /d/, /θ/, /ð/ |
| 2 | Green | /n/ |
| 3 | Cyan | /m/ |
| 4 | Red | /r/ |
| 5 | Magenta | /l/ |
| 6 | Brown | /tʃ/, /dʒ/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/ |
| 7 | White | /k/, /g/ |
| 8 | Gray | /f/, /v/ |
| 9 | Light Blue | /p/, /b/ |
| 10 | Light Green | - |
| 11 | Light Cyan | - |
| 12 | Light Red | - |
| 13 | Light Magenta | - |
| 14 | Yellow | - |
| 15 | Bright White | - |
The sections below describe the source of some of these associations.
The number-colour associations come from my early exposure to GWBASIC running on IBM EGA machines. On these systems, and their predecessors, each supported colour was represented by an integer code: 0 for black, 1 for blue, 2 for green, and so on.
Programs that wrote text directly to video memory at address B800:0000 also used these integer codes to display text in different colors.
I still remember quite vividly how exciting it was to use the colour commands to paint the background blue and write text on it in various colours.