ANTIC

Alphanumeric Television Interface Controller (ANTIC) is a LSI ASIC dedicated to generating 2D computer graphics to be shown on a television screen or computer display. Under the direction of Jay Miner, the chip was designed in 1977-1978 by Joe Decuir, Francois Michel, and Steve Smith for Atari 8-bit computers released in 1979 and was patented by Atari, Inc. in 1981. ANTIC is also used in the Atari 5200 video game system release in 1982. ANTIC is responsible for the generation of playfield graphics which is delivered as a datastream to the related CTIA/GTIA chip.