n. A video display device designed to work with a video card or an adapter to produce text or graphics images in color. A color monitor, unlike a monochrome display, has a screen coated internally with patterns of three phosphors that glow red, green, and blue when struck by an electron beam. To create colors such as yellow, pink, and orange, the three phosphors are lighted together in varying degrees. A video card that uses large groups of bits (6 or more) to describe colors and that generates analog (continuously variable) signals is capable of generating an enormous potential range of colors on a color monitor. See also color, color model, Cycolor.
