I posted this question over the weekend. I'm hoping this week-day post will find its way to someone who has the answer.

The short of it is: How do I get the Curses module (and ncurses itself) to give me more than one color on a true white background.

All of the Curses/ncurses docs and discussions I can find mostly ignore that what Curses calls WHITE (off-white to the eye) is not the same (true) white that Curses is able to produce in certain limited cases as a background color. In particular, using a non-standard background color of '8'... 

assume_default_colors(COLOR_BLACK, 8); # True White bg! Why?
. . .
init_pair(3, COLOR_RED,  8);       # Produces Black on Black

[download]
The assume_default_colors(SOMECOLOR, 8) trick gives me the kind of thing I want. But how can I get a second color on true white on the same screen.

Some docs do acknowledge that white in the foreground can be "bolded" to get true white. But that is no help for the background.

Curses looks like a wonderful tool -- I'd like to use it. But this one hang-up could be a deal-breaker for applying it in my current task.

Sample code was posted in the node referred to above.

Update: Dear Reader, do not be discouraged from responding by the extended discussion below with steves. Though it is illuminating, it does not lead to a solution to my problem.

------------------------------------------------------------
"Perl is a mess and that's good because the
problem space is also a mess." - Larry Wall

In reply to Color on TrueWhite in Curses - Redux by dvergin

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