TIA REGISTERS
▼
PLAYFIELD 20-bit pattern
$00
$00
$00
PLAYERS 8-bit sprites
$00
$00
BALL & MISSILES
POSITIONS 0–159 visible
COLORS 128-color NTSC palette
SELECT COLOR
$00
#000000
ATARI VIDEO COMPUTER SYSTEM™
COLLISIONS
SCANLINE TIMELINE
Line: 0 | Clock: 0
HSYNC
HBLANK
VISIBLE (160 clocks)
228 clks
6507 CPU
▼
$00
$00
$00
$FF
$F000
N
V
B
D
I
Z
C
0
●
●
AUDIO
▼
AUD0
AUD1
INFO
▼
"Racing the Beam"
The TIA has no framebuffer. Instead, the CPU must update TIA registers on every single scanline as the electron beam moves across the screen.
Each scanline = 228 color clocks. Of these, 68 are blanking (invisible) and 160 are visible. 1 CPU cycle = 3 color clocks.
💡 RAM cost ~$400/KB in 1977. The 2600 has just 128 bytes!
Designed by Jay Miner (TIA), Steve Mayer, Ron Milner, Joe Decuir. CPU by Chuck Peddle.