>Spectrum 512 divides each scan line 3 times for 48 colors per scan line(actually 42 if you want to use and edit with the paint program, 45 if you don't use the paint program and 48 if you use one of the photochrome modes). HAM6 can best Spectrum 512 in some ways because you can have 320 colors on a scan line. But HAM6 is limited because after those 16 "free" colors you can only modifify one of the 3 RGB values from a previous color causing unessary colors. Spectrum 512 is limited to 320x200. No interlacing.
I was talking about just 32-color mode on amiga not HAM6. In 32-color mode with a custom copper list, I was able to do 61 free colors per scan line. Using a 7.16Mhz Amiga, there's enough time in the HBI to modify 14 color registers, and 30 registers during visible portion of screen (in 320*x mode). Now if you partition the 32 colors into 14:17:1 where the first partition is colors that change during HBI, 17 that are staying the same from scanline i to i+1 (using delta-modulation where more common colors take on those indices), and take the 32nd color and repeatedly change it 30 times during visible portion of the screen you get: 14+17+30 = 61 free colors per scan line more than Spectrum 512. And I have not involved the Amiga CPU either.
>Photochrome looks amazing (bests VGA in many ways) but wasn't available until early 90's (spectrum 512 came out in 1987!). Photochrome interlaces two pictures and color mixes giving you 96 colors per scan line and a 4,096 color palette (for standard ST). Flicker is at a minimum for most cases and is similar to looking at interlaced pictures on the Amiga.
Those interlaced colors have to be distinguished from the REAL colors as the interlaced colors have half the refresh rate.
