Atari TIA

The Atari TIA (Television Interface Adaptor) chip is the heart of the Atari 2600 game console. It provided all of the audio and video capabilities of the system as well as 4 inputs to read the paddle controllers and two inputs to read the joystick triggers. The simplicity of the chip gave rise to it's considerable flexibility. Game designers where finding and exploting new tricks in the TIA long after the system was released.

For information on how the TIA was programmed check out the official Atari Stella Programming Guide (PDF).

For information on the internals of the TIA, check out Andrew Towers' TIA Hardware Notes

Schematics for the TIA can be found in the 2600 Archive section of Atariage.com.

Pinouts
  Vss 1

TIA

 40 I0 <--
<- SYNC 2 39 I1 <--
<- ~RDY 3 38 I2 <--
<- Ø0 4 37 I3 <--
<- LUM1 5 36 I4 <--
<- BLK 6 35 I5 <--
<- LUM2 7 34 D6 <->
<- LUM0 8 33 D7 <->
<- COL 9 32 A0 <--
-> DEL 10 31 A1 <--
-> OSC 11 30 A2 <--
<- AUD0 12 29 A3 <--
<- AUD1 13 28 A4 <--
-> D0 14 27 A5 <--
-> D1 15 26 Ø2 <--
-> D2 16 25 R/~W <--
-> D3 17 24 ~CS0 -->
-> D4 18 23 CS1 -->
-> D5 19 22 ~CS2 -->
  Vcc 20 21 ~CS3 -->

 

Pin Name Function
Vss Ground
SYNC Composite video sync (Horizontal and Vertical)
RDY This output goes to the RDY input of the 6507, allows the TIA to halt the processor
O0 Phase 0 clock to the 6507
LUM0,LUM1,LUM2 Video luminance outputs
BLK

Vertical blank output
COL Video color output
DEL Color delay input
OSC Clock input
AUD0,AUD1 Audio outputs
D0...D7 Processor data bus. Only D6 and D7 are bidirectional
Vcc +5 vdc
CS0,CS1,CS2,CS3 Chip selects CS0, CS2, CS3 must be low and CS1 must be high to enable chip
R/~W Read write signal from 6507
O2 Phase clock from 6507
A0...A5 Address bus from 6507
I0,I1,I2,I3 Dumped input ports (used for paddles)
I4,I5 Latched input ports (used for joystick/Paddle triggers)

 

Understanding the Schematics

Basic Logic Blocks

Playfield


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Dan Boris - danlb_2000@yahoo.com