Re: [stella] off the shelf?

Subject: Re: [stella] off the shelf?
From: Glenn Saunders <krishna@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 23:24:49 -0800 (PST)

On Sat, 3 Jan 1998, Greg Miller wrote:
> Basically, the TIA was a simple interface to a television. If you're

TIA has sprites, collision detection, 128-color palette, playfield
generator, I wouldn't say all it did was generate a blank screen for the
6507 to fill up.  Yes, the software takes the brunt of the
responsibilities on a 2600, but you couldn't draw anything to the screen
unless the TIA had those hardware capabilities.

If you want to talk about a 6502-based machine with even less between you
and the TV,
look at the Apple II, which didn't have any of the features of TIA.

It still took almost two years of R&D to get the 2600 out the door, so its
simplicity is deceptive.

> Atari introduced the 400 and 800, they used an upgraded TIA (CTIA and
> later GTIA) and just tacked on custom microprocessor (ANTIC) to run the
> chip in place of the CPU.

GTIA has other functions unique to it, such as its 16-shade mode.  I also
believe that GTIA has the sprite responsibilities internal to it as well. 
Although these chips are called "television interface" they are far more
than just glorified RF modulators or sync generators.



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