TIA 1A
TELEVISION INTERFACE ADAPTOR (MODEL 1A)
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The TIA1A is an MOS integrated circuit designed to interface between an eight (8) bit microprocessor and a television video modulator and to convert eight (8) bit parallel data into serial outputs for the color, luminosity, and composite sync required by a video modulator.DETAIL DESCRIPTIONThis circuit operates on a "line by line" basis, always outputing the same information every television line unless new data is written into it by the microprocessor.
A hardware sync counter produces horizontal sync timing independent of the microprocessor.
Vertical sync timing is supplied to this circuit by the microprocessor and combined into composite sync.
Horizontal position counters are used to trigger the serial output of five (5) horizontally moveable objects; two players, two missiles and a ball. The microprocessor can add or subtract from these position counters to move these objects right or left.
The microprocessor determines all vertical position and motion by writing zeros or ones into object registers before each appropriate horizontal line.
Walls, clouds and other seldom moved objects are produced by a low resolution data register called the playfield register.
A fifteen (15) bit collision register detects all fifteen possible two object collisions between these six (6) objects (five moveable and one playfield). This collision register can be read and reset by the microprocessor. Six input ports are also provided on this chip that can be read by the microprocessor. These input ports and the collision register are the only chip addresses that can be read by the microprocessor. All other addresses are write only.
Color luminosity registers are included that can be programmed by the microprocessor with eight (8) luminosity and fifteen (15) color values. A digital phase shifter is included on this chip to provide a single color output with fifteen (15) phase angles.
Two (2) independent audio generating circuits are included, each with programmable frequency, noise content, and volume control registers.
1. Data and addressingRegisters on this chip are addressed by the microprocessors part of its overall RAM-ROM memory space. The attached table of read-write addresses summarizes the addressable functions. There are no registers that are both read and write. Some addresses how- ever are both read and write, with write data going into one register and read data returning from a different register.
If the read-write line is low, :the data b ' its indicated in this table will be written into the addressed write location when the 02 clock goes from high to low. Some registers are eight bits wide, some only one bit, and some (strobes) have no bits, performing only control functions (such as resets) when their address is written.
If the read-write line is high, the addressed location can be read by the microprocessor on data lines 6 and 7 while the 02 clock is high.
The addresses given in the table refer only to the six (6) real address lines. If any of the four (4) chip select lines are used for addressing, the addresses must be modified accordingly.
2. Syncronization
A. Horizontal Timing3. Playfield graphics RegisterA hardware counter on this chip produces all horizontal timing (such as sync, blank, burst) independent of the microprocessor, This counter is driven from an external 3.58 MHZ oscillator and has a total count of 228. Blank is decoded as 68 counts and sync and color burst as 16 counts.
B. Vertical Timing
There are one bit, addressable registers on this chip for vertical sync and vertical blank. The timing for these functions is established by the microprocessor by writing zero or one into these bits. (VSYNC, VBLANK)
C. Composite Sync
Horizontal sync and the output of the vertical sync bit are combined together to produce composite sync. This composite sync signal drives a chip output pad to an external composite video resistor network.
D. Microprocessor Synchronization
The 3.58 MHZ oscillator also clocks a divide by three counter on this chip whose output (1.19 MHZ) is buffered to drive an output pad called 00 This pad provides the input phase zero clock to the microprocessor which then produces the system 02 clock (1.19 MHZ).
Software program loops require different lengths of time to run depending on branch decisions made within the program. Additional synchronization (Shown in Figure 2) is, therefore, required be- tween the software and hardware. This is done with a one bit latch called WSYNC (wait for sync). When the microprocessor finishes a routine such as loading registers for a ' horizontal. line, or computing new vertical locations during vertical blank, it can address WSYNC, setting this latch high. When this latch is high, it drives an output pad to zero connected to the microprocessor ready line (RDY). A zero on this line causes the microprocessor to halt and wait. As shown in figure 2, WSYNC latch is automatically reset to zero by the leading edge of the next horizontal blank timing signal, releasing the RDY line, allowing the microprocessor to begin its computation and register writing for this horizontal television line or line pair.
A. Description4. Horizontal Position CountersObjects, (such as walls, clouds, and score) which are not required to move, are written into a 20 bit register called the playfield register. This register (Figure 5) is loaded from the data bus by three separate write addresses (PF0, PF1, PF2). Playfield may be loaded at any time. To clear the playfield, zeros must be written into all three addresses.
B. Normal Serial Output
The playfield register is automatically scanned (and converted to serial output) by a bi-directional shift register clocked at a rate which spreads the twenty (20) bits out over the left half of a horizontal line. This scanning is initiated by the end of horizontal blank (left edge of tele- vision screen). Normally the same scan is then repeated, duplicating the same twenty (20) bit sequence over the right half of the horizontal line.
C. Reflected Serial-Output
A relected playfield may be requested by writing a one into bit zero of the playfield control register (CTRLPF). When this bit is true the scanning shift register will scan the opposite direction during the right half of the horizontal line, reversing the twenty (20) bit sequence.
D. Timing Constraints
Even though the playfield bytes (PFO, PF1, PF2) may be written at any time, if one of them is changed while being serially scanned, part of the old q/the new value may both show up on the television horizontal line.
A. Description5. Horizontal Motion RegistersThe playfield is a "fixed" graphics register, always starting its serial output when triggered by the beginning of each television line. This chip also includes five "moveable" graphics registers, whose serial outputs are triggered by five separate horizontal position counters every time these counters pass through zero count. These position counters are clocked continuously during the unblanked portion of every horizontal line and their count length is exactly equal to the normal number of clocks supplied to them during this time. They will therefore pass through zero at the same time during each horizontal television line and the triggered outputs will have no horizontal motion. A typical horizontal counter is shown in figure 4.
If extra clocks are supplied to these counters (or normal clocks suppressed) the zero crossing time will shift and the object will have moved left (extra clocks). or right (fewer Clocks). Some position counters have extra decodes (in addition to a zero decode) to trigger multiple copies of the same object across a horizontal line.
All position counters can be reset to zero count by the microprocessor at any time, by a write instruction to the reset addresses (RESBL, RESMO, RESM1, RESPO, RESP1). If reset occurs during horizontal blank, the object will appear at the left side of the television screen Properly timed resets may position an object at any horizontal location consistent with the microprocessor cycle time.
B. Ball Position Counter
The ball position counter has only the zero crossing decode and therefore cannot trigger multiple copies of the ball graphics.
C. Player Position Counters
Each player position counter has three decodes in addition to the zero crossing decode. These decodes are controlled by bits 0,1,2 of the mumber size control registers (NUSIZ0, NUSIZ1), and trigger 1,2, or 3 copies of the player (at various spacings) across a horizontal line as shown on page ___. These same control bits are used for the decodes * on the mis.sile position counter, insuring an equal number of players and missiles.
D. Missile Position Counters
Missile position counters are identical to player position counters except that they have another type of reset in addition to the previously discussed horizontal position reset. These extra reset addresses (RESMP0, RESMP1) write data bit 1 into a one bit register whose output is used to position the missile (horizontally) directly on top of its corresponding player, and to disable the missile serial output.
A. General Description6. Moving Object Graphics RegistersThere are five write only registers on this chip that contain the horizontal motion values for each of the five moving objects. A typical horizontal motion register is shown in figure 4. The data bus (bits 4 through 7) is written into these addresses (HMPO, HMP1, HMMO, HMM1, HMBL) to load these registers with motion values. These registers supply extra (or fewer) clocks' to the horizontal position counters only when commanded to do so by an HMOVE address from the micr6processor. These registers may all be cleared to zero (no motion) simultaneously by an HMCLR command from the microprocessor, or individually by loading zeros into each register. These registers are each four bits in length and may be loaded with positive (left motion), negative (right motion) or zero (no motion) values. Negative values are represented in twos complement format.
(there are no sections B and C in the document.)
D. Timing Constraints
These registers may be loaded or cleared at almost any time. The motion values they contain will be used only when an HMOVE command is addressed, and then all five motion values will be used simultaneously-into all five horizontal position counters once. The only timing constraint on this operation involves the HMOVE command. The HMOVE command must be located in the microprocessor program immediately after a wait for sync (WSYNC) command. This insures that the HMOVE operation begins at the leading edge of horizontal blank, and has the full blank time to supply extra or fewer clocks to the horizontal position counters. These registers should not be modified for at least 24 Computer cycles after the HMove command.
A. General Description7. Collision Detection LatchesThere are five graphics registers for moving objects on this chip. These graphics registers are loaded (written) in parallel by the microprocessor and like the playfield register are scanned and converted to serial output. Unlike the playfield register, which is alwaysscanned beginning at the left side of each horizontal line, moving object graphics registers are scanned only when triggered by a start decode from their horizontal position counter. A typical graphics register is shown in figure 4.
B. Missile Graphics
The graphics registers for both missiles are identical and very simple. They each consist of a one bit register called missile enable (ENAM0, ENAM1). This graphics bit is scanned (outputed) only when triggered by its corresponding position counter. There are control bits (bits 4,5, of NUSIZO, NUSIZ1) that can stretch this single graphics bit out over widths of 11' 2, 4, or 8 clocks of horizontal line time. (A full line is 160 clocks).
C. Player Graphics
The graphics registers for both players are identical and are rather complex. They each consist of eight bit parallel registers (GRPO, GRP1) and a bi-directional parallel to serial scan counter that converts the parallel data into serial output.
A one bit control register (REFPO, REFP1) determines the direction (reflection) of the parallel to serial scan, outputing either D7 through DO, or DO through D7. This allows reflection (horizontal flipping) of player serial graphics data without having to flip the microprocessor data.
The clock into the scan counter can be controlled (three bits of NUSIZO and NUSIZ1) to slow the scan rate and stretch the eight bits of serial graphics out over widths of 8, 16, or 32 clocks of horizontal line time. These same control bits are used in the playermissile motion counters to control multiple copies, so only three player widths (scan rates) are available.
D. Vertical Delay
Each of the player graphics registers actually consists of two 8 bit parallel registers. The first (GRP0, GRPl) is loaded (written) from the microprocessor 8 bit data bus. The second is automatically loaded from the output of the first. The reason for this is a complex subject called vertical delay. A large amount of microprocessor time is required to generate player, missile and playfield graphics (table look up, masking, comparisons, etc.) and load these into this chip's registers. For most game programs this is time is just too large to fit into one horizontal line time. In fact for most games it will barely fit into two line times (127 microseconds). Therefore, individual graphics registers are loaded (written) every two lines, and used .twice for serial output between loads. This type of programming will obviously limit the vertical height resolution of objects to multiples of two lines. It also will limit the resolution of vertical motion to two lines jumps.
Nothing can be done about the vertical height resolution; however, vertical motion can be resolved to a single line by addition of a second graphics register that is automatically parallel loaded from the output of the first, one line time after the first was loaded from the data bus. This second graphics register output is therefore always delayed vertically by one line. A control bit called vertical delay (VDEL0, VDEL1) selects which of these two registers is to be used for, serial output. If this control bit is set by the microprocessor between picture frames the object will be moved down (delayed) by, one line during the next frame.
In most programming applications player 0 graphics and player I graphics are loaded (written) alternately, during the blank time just prior to each line as shown in (figure 1). Since GRPO and GRP1 addresses from the microprocessor alternate, they are delayed by one line from each other. The GRPO address decode can therefore be used to load the delayed graphics register for player 1, and GRP1 likewise to load the delayed graphics register for player 0. The two vertical delay bits (VDEL0, VDELl) then select delayed or undelayed registers for player 0 and player 1 as serial outputs.
E. Ball Graphics
The ball graphics register is almost identical to the missile graphics register. It also consists of a single enable bit (ENABL) whose output is triggered by the ball position counter. It also has two control bits (bits 41 5 of CTRLPF) that can stretch this single graphics bit out over widths of 1, 2, 4, or 8 clocks of horizontal line time. Unlike the missile graphics, however, the ball graphics register has capability for vertical delay similar to the player graphics. A second graphics (enable) bit is alternately loaded from the output of the first, one line after the first was loaded from the data bus. A ball vertical delay bit (VDELBL) selects which of these two graphics bits is used for the ball serial output. The first graphics bit (ENABL) should be loaded during the same horizontal blank time as player 0 (GRP0), because GRP1 is used to load the second enable bit from the output of the first on alternate lines.
A. Definitions8. Input portsThe serial outputs from all the graphics registers represent real time horizontal location of objects on the television screen. If any of these outputs occur at the same time, they will overlap (collide) on the screen. There are six objects generated on this chip (five moving and playfield'. allowing fifteen possible two object collisions. These overlaps collisions) are detected by fifteen "and" gates whenever they occur, add are stored in fifteen individual latch register bits, as shown in figure 6.
B. Reading Collisions
The microprocessor can read these fifteen collision bits on data lines 6 and 7 by addressing them two at a time. This could be done at any time but is usually done between frames (during vertical blank) after all possible collisions have serially occured.
C. Reset
All collision bits are reset simultaneously by the microprocessor using the reset address CXCLR. This is usually done near the end of vertical blank, after collisions have been tested.
A. General Description8.5 Priority EncoderThere are 6 input ports on this chip whose logic state may be read on data line 7 with read addresses INPT0 through INPT5. These 6 parts are divided into two types, "dumped" and "latched". See Figure 8.
B. Dumped lnput Ports (I0 through I3)
These 4 input parts are normally used to read paddle position from an external potentiometer-capacitor circuit. In order to discharge these capacitors each of these input ports has a large transistor, which may be turned on (grounding the input ports) by writing into bit 7 of the register VBLANK. When this control bit is cleared the potentimeters begin to recharge the capacitors and the microprocessor measures the time required to detect a logic 1 at each input port.
As long as bit 7 of register VBLANK is zero, these four ports are general purpose high impedance input ports. When this bit is a 1 these ports are grounded.
C. Latched Input ports (I4, I5)
These two input ports have latches which can be enabled or disabled by writing into bit 6 of register VBLANK.
When disabled, these latches are removed from the circuit completly and these ports become two general purpose input ports, whose present logic state can be read directly by the microprocessor.
When enabled, these latches will store negative (zero logic level) signals appearing on these two input ports, and the input port addresses will read the latches instead of the input ports.
When first enabled these latches will remain positive as long as the input ports remain positive (logic one). A zero input port signal will clear a latch value to zero, where it will remain (even after the port returns positive) until disabled. Both latches may be simultaneously disabled by writing a zero into bit 6 of register VBLANK.
A. Purpose9. Color Luminance RegistersAs discussed in the section on collisions, simultaneous serial outputs from the graphics registers represent overlap on the television screen. In order to have color-luminosity values assigned to individual objects it is necessary to establish priorities between objects when overlapped. The priority encoder is shown in figure 3.
B. Priority Assignment
The lack of any objects results in a color-lum value called the background. The background (BK) has lowest priority and only appears when no objects are outputing. In order to simplify the logic each missile is given the same color-lum value and priority as it's corresponding player (PO, MO) and the ball is given the same color-lum value and priority as the playfield (PF, BL).
The following table illustrates the normal priority assignment:
Highest Priority P0, M0 Second Highest P1, M1 Third Highest PF, BL Lowest Priority BKObjects with higher priority will appear to move in front of objects with lower priority. Players will therefore move in front of playfield (clouds, walls, etc.).C. Priority Control
There are two playfield control bits that affect priority, one called playfield priority (PFP) (bit 2 of CTRLPF) and one called score (bit 1 of CTRLPF). When a one is written into the PFP bit the priority assignment is modified as shown below.
Highest Priority PF, BL Second Highest P0, M0 Third Highest P1, M1 Lowest Priority BKPlayers will then move behind playfield (clouds, wall, etc.).When a one is written into the score control bit, the playfield is forced to take the color-lum of player 0 in the left half of the screen and player 1 in the right half of the screen. This is used when displaying score and identifiers the score with the correct player.
The priority encoder produces 4 register select lines (shown in figure 3) that are mutually exclusive. These 4 lines select either background, player 0, player 1 or playfield, and only one of them can be true at a time.
A. Description10. Color Phase ShifterThere are four registers (shown in figure 3) that contain color- lum codes. Four bits of color code and three bits of luminance code may be written into each of these registers (COLUP0, COLUP1, COLUPF, COLUBK) by the microprocessor at any time. These codes (representing 16 color values and 8 luminance values) are given in the Detailed Address List.
B. Multiplexing
The serial graphics output from all six objects is examined by the priority encoder which activates one of the four select lines into a 4 X 7 multiplexer. This multiplexer (shown in figure 3) then selects one of the four color-lum registers as a 7 line output. Three of these lines are binary coded luminosity and go directly to chip output pads. The other .four lines go to the color phase shifter.
This portion of the chip (shown in figure 3) produces a reference color output (color burst) during horizontal blank and then during the unblanked portion of the line it produces a color output shifted in phase with respect to the color burst. The amount of phase shift determines the color and is selected by the four color code lines from the Color-lum. multiplexer. Binary code 0 selects no color. Code 1 selects gold (same phase as color burst). Codes 2 (0010) through 15 (1111) shift the phase from zero through almost 360 degrees allowing selection of 15 total colors around the television color wheel.
11. Audio Circuits
Two audio circuits are incorporated on this chip. They are identical and completely independent, al- though their outputs could be combined externally into one speaker. Each audio circuit consists of parts described below, and in figure 7.
A. Frequency SelectClock pulses (at approximately 30 KHZ) from the horizontal sync counter pass through a "divide by N" circuit which is controlled by the output code from a five bit frequency register (AUDF). This register can be loaded (written) by the microprocessor at any time, and causes the 30 KHZ clocks to be divided by 1 (code 00000) through.32 (code.11111). This produces pulses that are digitally adjustable from approximately 30 KHZ to 1 KHZ and are used to clock the noise-tone generator.
B. Noise-Tone Generator
This circuit contains a nine bit shift counter which may be controlled by the output code from a four bit audio control register (AUDC), and is clocked by the frequency select circuit. The control register can be loaded by the micro- processor at any time, and selects different shift counter feedback taps and count lengths to produce a variety of noise and tone qualities.
C. Volume Select
The shift counter output is used to drive the audio output pad through four driver transistors that are graduated in size. Each ' transistor, is twice as large'-as the previous one and is enabled by one bit from the audio volume register (AUDV). This audio volume register:-may be loaded by the microprocessor at any time. As binary codes 0 through 15 are loaded, the pad drive transistors are enabled in a binary sequence. The shift counter output therefore can pull down on the audio output pad with 16 selectable impedance levels.
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