The
Bubble System is an
arcade system boardAn arcade system board is a dedicated computer system created for the purpose of running video arcade games. Arcade system boards typically consist of a main system board with any number of supporting boards...
designed by
Konamiis a Japanese leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games...
and used across many
arcade gameAn arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, typically installed in businesses such as restaurants, public houses, video arcades, and Family Entertainment Centers...
s in the early eighties.
The Bubble System was supposed to have a unique new form of data storage for arcade-style video games. It used
bubble memoryBubble memory is a type of non-volatile computer memory that uses a thin film of a magnetic material to hold small magnetized areas, known as bubbles or domains, each of which stores one bit of data...
cartridges, a sort of non-mechanical magnetic storage system. It was said to have a higher reliability than mechanical diskette or tape drives.
Konami used their new G400 BIOS for this project, and modified it a bit. The main CPU was a
Motorola 68000The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit
CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor...
at 10 MHz. There was a separate
Zilog Z80The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed and sold by Zilog from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes...
for sound control, which drove two AY-3-8910s, a custom
Konami SCCThe Konami SCC is a sound chip developed by Konami with Yamaha for the MSX. Konami was dissatisfied with the capabilities of the PSG, the MSX and MSX2 built-in sound chip. The SCC is used together with the PSG and is also known as the K051649.Each Konami cartridge that uses the SCC had one on board...
(K005289), and a VLM5030 speech synthesizer. It had a Scramble wiring harness.
A Bubble Memory game can be identified by its
bootingIn computing, booting is a bootstrapping process that starts operating systems when the user turns on a computer system. A boot sequence is the initial set of operations that the computer performs when power is switched on...
sequence. It displays a "warming up" screen, accompanied with a countdown timer and a small musical tune (called "Morning Music"). The reason this was implemented was because Bubble Memory had to be heated to around 40-50°C for it to work properly.
Bubble Memory was not a fully developed technology by the time it was used in the Bubble System, and as a result it is currently very rare to find a working Bubble System. The system proved to be unpopular because it had a high sensitivity to magnetic fields (which was not suitable for an arcade environment, with unshielded speakers and degauss coils), and were also considerably more expensive than ROM chip-based boards. Most games on this system were eventually ported to standard ROM chips, and the system was discontinued.
Still, Konami has made homages to the Bubble System in 2 recent games; with Morning Music being one of the playable tracks in
KeyboardmaniaKeyboardmania is a rhythm video game created by the Bemani division of Konami. In this game up to two players use 24-key keyboards to play the piano or keyboard part of a selected song. Notes are represented on-screen by small bars that scroll downward above an image of the keyboard itself...
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jguHUyKCRd4&mode=related&search=, and the intro of
Konami Classics Series: Arcade HitsKonami Classics Series: Arcade Hits, released as Konami Arcade Collection in Japan and Konami Arcade Classics in Europe and Oceania, is a collection of 15 classic arcade games by Konami for the Nintendo DS.-Lineup:...
featuring the song too.
Bubble System games
- Gradius
The Gradius games, first introduced in 1985, is a series of scrolling shooter video games published by Konami for a variety of portable, console and arcade platforms. In many games in the series the player controls a ship known as the Vic Viper...
(ported to ROM chips as Nemesis)
- TwinBee
is a 1985 side-scrolling shooter released by Konami as a video arcade. The game was ported to the Family Computer and the MSX platforms during the following year...
- Galactic Warriors
- Konami RF2 (ported to ROM chips as Konami GT
Konami GT is a 1985 racing videogame released by Konami, off their GX400 architecture. The player drives a sportscar with a turbo mode that can be activated by the gearshift, but wastes more fuel and puts the player at a higher risk of hitting an obstacle...
)