Abstract: A line adapter for permitting the transfer of information between terminals and a bus connected to the central control unit CCU of a communications controller. The line adapter includes a microprocessor associated with a control memory and a scanner. A random access memory is split into zones, one zone being assigned to each line. During an initiating phase, the zones are personalized under the control of the microcode by sending initiating parameters (which are characteristics of the lines) to the memory, through an asynchronous path bus and external registers. Exchanges of temporarily-stored data between the CCU bus and the lines are carried out through cycle steal operations between the control memory and the random access memory.