HAM8 (Hold And Modify 8) is a display mode introduced with the Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA) chipset in Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000 computers, supporting up to 262,144 colors (18-bit color depth). Unlike standard indexed color modes, HAM8 uses 8 bits per pixel where 2 bits serve as control flags and 6 bits define the color value, allowing modification of individual RGB components per pixel while maintaining a smaller memory footprint than true color modes. This mode enables photorealistic imagery by holding previous pixel color values and modifying only selected color channels, though it requires careful image processing to avoid color artifacts along sharp edges.