Color Television Interface Adapter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Color Television Interface Adapter is the graphics chip used in some early Atari 400/800 home computers. The chip is the successor to the TIA chip used in the Atari 2600. The chip was later replaced with the GTIA in later revisions of the 400 and 800, and in all other member's of the Atari 8-bit family. No CTIA-equipped Ataris were shipped to Europe.

According to Joe Decuir, George McLeod designed the CTIA (Colleen TIA) in 1977. McLeod also designed the GTIA.

Atari owners can determine if their machine is equipped with the CTIA or GTIA by executing the following BASIC command: POKE 623,64 If the screen blackens after execution, the machine is equipped with the new GTIA chip. If it stays blue, the machine has a CTIA chip instead.

See also: ANTIC