Television Interface Adaptor

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The Television Interface Adaptor^[1] (TIA) is the custom computer chip, along with a variant of the MOS Technology 6502 constituting the heart of the 1977 Atari Video Computer System game console. The TIA generates the screen display, sound effects, and reads the controllers. At the time the Atari VCS was designed, even small amounts of RAM were expensive. The chip was designed around not having a frame buffer, instead requiring detailed programming to create even a simple display.^[2]

Development of the CO10444/CO11903^[3] TIA was led by Jay Miner who continued at Atari expanding on the design of the TIA for the Atari 8-bit computers with the ANTIC and CTIA/GTIA chips. Jay Miner later led the design of the custom chips for the Amiga computer.