Atari technical documentation

This page lists, machine by machine, the main chips inside each Atari console and computer from the 2600 to the Jaguar, and the period documents that describe them: field service manuals for repairs, programming guides and hardware references for writing software. Each document is given with its title as printed, its publisher and date, and a copy that can be read online. The site hosts no PDF files and no ROM images; every copy below is kept by an outside archive.

Old links to the technical documents archive that used this address (8-bit, 16-bit, arcade, games and miscellaneous sections, the PDF folder, the 850 notes, the ROM page and the 2600, 5200 and Lynx FAQs) now lead here.

Where the scans are kept

Most of the documents below come from four places. Atarimania keeps a “Technical Documents” list for each machine, including the 2600, the 5200 and the ST, TT and Falcon. The Internet Archive holds scans of books such as De Re Atari, Mapping the Atari and Atari ST Internals. AtariAge keeps the console FAQs and indexes of game manuals for the 2600, 5200 and 7800. The Arcade Archive covers coin-op manuals.

Atari 2600 (VCS)

Chip	Role
6507	Processor, a derivative of the 6502; it runs at the 3.58 MHz color clock divided by three, about 1.19 MHz
TIA (Television Interface Adaptor)	Atari custom chip that generates the picture and the sound
6532, called the PIA in the Stella guide	128 bytes of RAM, an interval timer and two 8-bit I/O ports

The Stella guide states the constraint that shapes every 2600 program: the TIA holds only the data for the line being drawn, so the processor has to rewrite it during the 76 machine cycles of each scan line, and game logic runs in the 70 lines of vertical sync, vertical blank and overscan.

Document	Publisher and date	Read it
2600 (Stella) Programmer’s Guide, by Steve Wright	Atari, Inc., December 3, 1979; updated by Darryl May, July 1, 1988	Internet Archive
2600/2600A VCS Domestic (M/N) Field Service Manual, FD100133 Rev. 02	Atari, Inc., January 1983	Atarimania, PDF
The Stella System Training Manual, Version 1.1, by Chris Powell	February 1983; no publisher on the title page	Atarimania, PDF

Atari 400, 800 and the XL and XE computers

Chip	Role
6502 (part C014377) or SALLY (part C014806)	Processor at 1.79 MHz on NTSC machines and 1.77 MHz on PAL machines. SALLY, used in late 400/800 units and in every XL and XE model, adds a HALT line that lets ANTIC take the bus
ANTIC	Display processor that runs a display list stored in RAM, which it reads by direct memory access
CTIA or GTIA	Turns ANTIC’s output into the video signal; handles colors, player-missile graphics, collisions, joystick triggers and the console keys. Early NTSC 400/800 units have the CTIA, later ones the GTIA, which adds three graphics modes
POKEY	Keyboard scan, the serial I/O bus, sound, timers and the paddle inputs
PIA (6520)	Two 8-bit I/O ports
FREDDIE (C061922 or C061991)	DRAM controller in later 800XL units and all XE models

Michael Current’s Atari 8-bit FAQ gives the part numbers above for each chip version, which helps identify the chips on a given board.

Document	Publisher and date	Read it
Atari Home Computer System Technical Reference Notes, C016555 Rev. A (Operating System User’s Manual, Operating System Source Listing, Hardware Manual)	Atari, Inc., 1982	Internet Archive
Atari 400/800 Home Computer Field Service Manual, FD100001	Atari, Inc., June 1982, with revisions up to May 1983	Internet Archive
De Re Atari, by Chris Crawford and others	Atari Program Exchange, 1982	Internet Archive
Mapping the Atari, by Ian Chadwick	COMPUTE! Books, 1983; revised edition 1985	1983 edition, 1985 edition
Atari 850 Interface Module Technical Manual	Atari, Inc., 1982	Atarimania, PDF
800XL Computer Field Service Manual, FD100740 Rev. 02	Atari (U.S.) Corp., June 1985	Atarimania, PDF
130XE Reference Manual	Atari (U.S.) Corp., June 1985	Atarimania, PDF

The 850 Interface Module gave the 400 and 800 four RS-232-C serial ports and one Centronics parallel port, all with Atari’s own pinouts; its technical manual covers programming those ports from Atari BASIC.

Atari 5200

The 5200 is built from the same chip family as the 400 and 800. Its field service manual lists a modified 6502 (the SALLY), ANTIC, GTIA and POKEY.

Document	Publisher and date	Read it
Atari Advanced Video Entertainment System Model 5200 Field Service Manual, FD100127 Rev. 3	Atari, Inc., June 1983	Atarimania, PDF
Atari 5200 SuperSystem Frequently Asked Questions, version 3.3	Keita Iida, April 9, 2001	AtariAge

Atari 7800

Chip	Role
SALLY (6502)	Processor at 1.79 MHz; it slows to 1.19 MHz while it accesses the TIA or the 6532
MARIA	All the video in 7800 mode
TIA	Sound and some input ports
6532	Inputs from the joysticks and console switches
Two 6116	2 KB each, 4 KB of RAM in all

The 7800 also contains a protection circuit that checks a cartridge’s encrypted data before it enables 7800 mode. The Software Guide describes the 2600 mode as identical to an Atari 2600.

Document	Publisher and date	Read it
7800 Software Guide	Atari, undated (1984)	Atari Gaming Headquarters, PDF
Historic Documents (index of period 7800 development documents)	8BitDev.org wiki	8BitDev.org

Atari ST, TT and Falcon

Machine	Chip	Role
ST	Motorola 68000	Processor at 8 MHz
ST	GLUE, MMU, DMA and SHIFTER	Atari’s four custom chips: system timing and address decoding, memory and video addressing, the disk and hard disk DMA, and the conversion of video RAM into the monitor signal
ST	WD 1772	Floppy disk controller
ST	MFP 68901	Multi-function peripheral chip
ST	Two 6850 ACIAs	One for the keyboard, mouse and joysticks, one for MIDI
ST	YM-2149	Sound generator
ST	6301	Single-chip processor inside the keyboard
Mega ST	BLiTTER	Graphics coprocessor
TT030	Motorola 68030 and 68882	Processor at 32 MHz with a standard math coprocessor
Falcon030	Motorola 68030 and 56001	Processor at 16 MHz and a digital signal processor with 96 KB of its own RAM

The Atari ST section of this site covers the models in more detail.

Document	Publisher and date	Read it
Atari ST Internals, by Gerits, Englisch and Bruckmann	Abacus Software and Data Becker, 1985	Internet Archive
The Atari Compendium, by Scott D. Sanders	SDS Publishing, a division of Software Development Systems, 1993; first revision 1994	textfiles.com, HTML edition from the 1995 CD-ROM
Atari TT030 Hardware Reference Manual	Atari Corporation, June 1990	Atarimania, PDF
Atari Falcon030 Service Guide, C303062-001	Atari Corporation, October 1, 1992	Atarimania, PDF
Developer support package for the Atari Falcon030 (manual)	Atari Corporation, 1992	Atarimania, PDF

ST Internals describes the first ST models chip by chip, with their registers. The Compendium covers TOS, GEM and the hardware of the later models up to the Falcon030.

Atari Lynx

Chip	Role
Mikey	Custom chip holding the 65C02 processor and all the hardware except the sprite engine, including the display and four audio channels
Suzy	Custom sprite engine, which also contains the math functions, the switch readers and the cartridge reader
Two 64K by 4 DRAMs	64 KB of system RAM, shared by the video buffers and the game

A single 16 MHz crystal times the whole system. The display is a 3.4-inch color LCD of 160 by 102 pixels, with 16 levels each of red, green and blue.

Document	Publisher and date	Read it
Handy hardware specification (Handy was the Lynx’s code name at Epyx)	Epyx, 1987; HTML version by M. Domin and B. Schick, 1996	monlynx.de
Lynx developer documentation (Handy specifications, programmer’s guide, schematics, sound tools)	Scans of the documents used by Lynx developers, as multi-page TIF images	AtariAge
Atari Lynx Frequently Asked Questions	Maintained by Robert Jung, updated August 3, 2003	AtariAge

Atari Jaguar

Chip	Role
Tom	Graphics: the Object Processor, the Blitter and the Graphics Processor (GPU)
Jerry	Sound: the Digital Sound Processor (DSP)
Motorola 68000	External processor; the manual notes that the bus interface is based on the 68000 but that most processors could be attached

Document	Publisher and date	Read it
Technical Reference Manual: Tom & Jerry, by Martin Brennan, Tim Dunn and John Mathieson	Atari Corporation, 1992–1993; Revision 8 dated February 28, 2001	Hill Software, PDF, mirror
Jaguar Technical Reference Manual, 28 Feb 01 (download page for the same 141-page PDF)	Jagware	Jagware

The manual documents the registers of both Jaguar custom chips.

Coin-op manuals

Coin-op manuals from Atari, Kee Games and Atari Games are filed by game at the Arcade Archive, from Tank to Steel Talons. For Asteroids, the Asteroids folder keeps the Operation, Maintenance and Service Manual, TM-143, in several printings, along with the DP-143 drawing packages and a service bulletin. The arcade catalog lists the games themselves.

FAQs and game manuals

FAQ	Author and date	Read it
Atari 2600 FAQ	AtariAge, last updated January 10, 2003	AtariAge
Atari 5200 SuperSystem FAQ, version 3.3	Keita Iida, April 9, 2001	AtariAge
Atari Lynx FAQ	Robert Jung, updated August 3, 2003	AtariAge
Atari 8-Bit Computers FAQ	Michael Current, last modified August 2, 2026	mcurrent.name

Scans of the instruction booklets for console games are indexed by AtariAge for the 2600, 5200 and 7800. The video games page covers the games.

ROM images and PDF copies

This site keeps no ROM images and no copies of the manuals. The documents above are linked where their archives keep them, and the links were tested on October 30, 2026.