@alexh:
The bits are not about being able to reproduce as many colours as ham-8, but it is about being able to produce all the colours that aga can. If it just was about how manu colours then the 8:4:4 phase5/dce scandoublers/flickerfixers wouldnt be too shabby, but as it is they cant for example produce the colour ff:05:0a - it would end up as ff:00:00 as they dont give a {bleep} about the least significant 4 bits on both the green and blue channel.
/Patrik