CTIA and GTIA

Color Television Interface Adaptor (CTIA) and its successor Graphic Television Interface Adaptor (GTIA) are custom chips used in the Atari 8-bit family of computers and in the Atari 5200 console. In these systems, a CTIA or GTIA chip works together with ANTIC to produce video display. ANTIC generates the playfield graphics (text and bitmap) while CTIA/GTIA provides the color for the playfield and adds overlay objects known as player/missile graphics (sprites). Under the direction of Jay Miner, the CTIA/GTIA chips were designed by George McLeod with technical assistance of Steve Smith.

Color Television Interface Adaptor and Graphic Television Interface Adaptor are names of the chips as stated in the Atari field service manual. Various publications named the chips differently, sometimes using the alternative spelling Adapter or Graphics, or claiming that the "C" in "CTIA" stands for Colleen/Candy and "G" in "GTIA" is for George.

History

2600 and TIA

Atari had built their first display driver chip, the Television Interface Adaptor but universally referred to as the TIA, as part of the Atari 2600 console. The TIA display logically consisted of two primary sets of objects, the "players" and "missiles" that represented moving objects, and the "playfield" which represented the static background image on which the action took place. The chip used data in memory registers to produce digital signals that were converted in realtime via a digital-to-analog converter and RF modulator to produce a television display.