I'll let the code clear up some confusion here:

/* We only have 4 shades, including black & white. This isn't
strictly true as the SA1100 provides 14 greyshades on a LCD
display, but due to the low persistence of the VFD pixels,
other shades tend to be very very flickery and not very
effective. They could be used for trippy special effects, I
suppose... */

static short palettes[][16]= {
/* All-black */
{ 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 },

/* Special palette to support Toby's code */
{ 0, 1, 2, 15, 0, 1, 2, 15, 0, 1, 2, 15, 0, 1, 2, 15 },

/* Standard palette */
{ 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 15,15,15,15 },

/* One-to-one mapping */
{ 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10,11, 12,13,14,15 },

};