The ticket machines and gates on the London Underground in the late 80's and early 90's all used bubble memory for transaction storage. They used Fujitsu bubble memory chips on double eurocard / VME sized cards.
Scott, you’re amazing ! It occurred to me that the father of a friend told me about those bubble memories at the end of the 70’s. I was like 14 at the time. They were supposed to become the next big thing in data storage. Then I no longer heard about this topic. Later, I even believed the technology had been renamed to… flash memory !! So thank you for educating me on this ! 😅
Wow is this a trip down "memory" lane. Great video and overview! I cut my teeth on the slightly later Heathkit H11, complete with paper tape mass storage. What I wouldn't have given for 1 Mbit (128K) of fast, solid state storage back in the day! I'm also happy to hear that my application note from 1984 still lives on (starting at 17:27 into the video)! Frankly, I'm amazed that you could still find components!
Very cool! I've been waffling on purchasing those items from Craig for a couple years now due to the price, and now I wish I had before he ran out. The marble run-based explanation was nice! I've watched other videos on bubble memory, and read a little about it, and I... almost can convince myself that it's a real technology now, LOL. It's just so strange compared to understanding things like floppy disks, SRAM, or Flash that it breaks my brain! Seeing the H8 boot from it and run BASIC was very cool, and learning that the controller IC for the whole bubble memory module and support chips is addressed similarly to a floppy controller was very enlightening.
When I was at school in tthe early 80s, my friend was "obsessed" with bubble memory and he thought it was the way of the future... I've never seen it in real life..... didn't see anything even like it until flash came into common usage many years later.
You're not thinking of Twistor? bubble was a fairly short-lived tech and wasn't commercialized until the late 70's (and ultimately given up on in the early 80's).
If Magnetic bubble memory modules are impossible to find, MRAM (magnetoresistive RAM) memory chips are also a good alternative for that storage option, which is a bit easier to interface with in pretty much all older computers with the parallel version of MRAM chip, compared to the bubble memory modules (you can technically get away with doing brain-dead simple logics for that bubble memory module as long as you stick with the restrictions listed in the datasheets). I already grabbed 32 kilobytes parallel MRAM chip along with the parallel SRAM memory for total of 64 kilobytes that a Z80 CPU can directly access with little logics for my own DIY computer basically for fun (I decided to make it similar to IMSAI 8080 computer by functionality viewpoint, mostly for educational experience). Be warned, though, higher capacity MRAM chips (beyond 32 - 128 Kilobytes) tend to be quite expensive - it's immortality is kinda worth it though (it got crazy rewrite endurance compared to flash chips).
The SBX251 board I purchased was from ebay. The memtech kits (set of chips in the plastic tray) were from Craig's Tindie store at www.tindie.com/stores/helloworld/
The ticket machines and gates on the London Underground in the late 80's and early 90's all used bubble memory for transaction storage. They used Fujitsu bubble memory chips on double eurocard / VME sized cards.
Scott, you’re amazing ! It occurred to me that the father of a friend told me about those bubble memories at the end of the 70’s. I was like 14 at the time. They were supposed to become the next big thing in data storage. Then I no longer heard about this topic. Later, I even believed the technology had been renamed to… flash memory !! So thank you for educating me on this ! 😅
I'm always impressed with myself when I can follow along with your videos
Top work Scott
Wow is this a trip down "memory" lane. Great video and overview! I cut my teeth on the slightly later Heathkit H11, complete with paper tape mass storage. What I wouldn't have given for 1 Mbit (128K) of fast, solid state storage back in the day! I'm also happy to hear that my application note from 1984 still lives on (starting at 17:27 into the video)! Frankly, I'm amazed that you could still find components!
Very cool! I've been waffling on purchasing those items from Craig for a couple years now due to the price, and now I wish I had before he ran out. The marble run-based explanation was nice! I've watched other videos on bubble memory, and read a little about it, and I... almost can convince myself that it's a real technology now, LOL. It's just so strange compared to understanding things like floppy disks, SRAM, or Flash that it breaks my brain! Seeing the H8 boot from it and run BASIC was very cool, and learning that the controller IC for the whole bubble memory module and support chips is addressed similarly to a floppy controller was very enlightening.
When I was at school in tthe early 80s, my friend was "obsessed" with bubble memory and he thought it was the way of the future... I've never seen it in real life..... didn't see anything even like it until flash came into common usage many years later.
You're not thinking of Twistor? bubble was a fairly short-lived tech and wasn't commercialized until the late 70's (and ultimately given up on in the early 80's).
If Magnetic bubble memory modules are impossible to find, MRAM (magnetoresistive RAM) memory chips are also a good alternative for that storage option, which is a bit easier to interface with in pretty much all older computers with the parallel version of MRAM chip, compared to the bubble memory modules (you can technically get away with doing brain-dead simple logics for that bubble memory module as long as you stick with the restrictions listed in the datasheets).
I already grabbed 32 kilobytes parallel MRAM chip along with the parallel SRAM memory for total of 64 kilobytes that a Z80 CPU can directly access with little logics for my own DIY computer basically for fun (I decided to make it similar to IMSAI 8080 computer by functionality viewpoint, mostly for educational experience).
Be warned, though, higher capacity MRAM chips (beyond 32 - 128 Kilobytes) tend to be quite expensive - it's immortality is kinda worth it though (it got crazy rewrite endurance compared to flash chips).
This is new info to me. Very cool vid. TY 👏
Can you point to URL for multi-module bus standard/specification?
Please provide links for where to purchase the Bubble Memory board. Thanks!
The SBX251 board I purchased was from ebay. The memtech kits (set of chips in the plastic tray) were from Craig's Tindie store at www.tindie.com/stores/helloworld/