For reasons detailed here I need to texture a quad using a bitmap (as in, 1 bit per pixel, not an 8-bit pixmap).

Right now I have a bitmap stored in an on-device buffer, and am mounting it like so:

glBindBuffer(GL_PIXEL_UNPACK_BUFFER, BFR.G[(T+1)%2]);
glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL_RGB, W, H, 0, GL_COLOR_INDEX, GL_BITMAP, 0);

The OpenGL spec has this to say about glTexImage2D: "If type is GL_BITMAP, the data is considered as a string of unsigned bytes (and format must be GL_COLOR_INDEX). Each data byte is treated as eight 1-bit elements..."

Judging by the spec, each bit in my buffer should correspond to a single pixel. However, the following experiments show that, for whatever reason, it doesn't work as advertised:

1) When I build my texture, I write to the buffer in 32-bit chunks. From the wording of the spec, it is reasonable to assume that writing 0x00000001 for each value would result in a texture with 1-px-wide vertical bars with 31-wide spaces between them. However, it appears blank.

2) Next, I write with 0x000000FF. By my apparently flawed understanding of the bitmap mode, I would expect that this should produce 8-wide bars with 24-wide spaces between them. Instead, it produces a white 1-px-wide bar.

3) 0x55555555 = 1010101010101010101010101010101, therefore writing this value ought to create 1-wide vertical stripes with 1 pixel spacing. However, it creates a solid gray color.

4) Using my original 8-bit pixmap in GL_BITMAP mode produces the correct animation.

I have reached the conclusion that, even in GL_BITMAP mode, the texturer is still interpreting 8-bits as 1 element, despite what the spec seems to suggest. The fact that I can generate a gray color (while I was expecting that I was working in two-tone), as well as the fact that my original 8-bit pixmap generates the correct picture, support this conclusion.

Questions:

1) Am I missing some kind of prerequisite call (perhaps for setting a stride length or pack alignment or something) that will signal to the texturer to treat each byte as 8-elements, as it suggests in the spec?

2) Or does it simply not work because modern hardware does not support it? (I have read that GL_BITMAP mode was deprecated in 3.3, I am however forcing a 3.0 context.)

3) Am I better off unpacking the bitmap into a pixmap using a shader? This is a far more roundabout solution than I was hoping for but I suppose there is no such thing as a free lunch.