Archived. I have left Scratch.
"Shoot the core!" I recreated the bootup screen for Konami's 1985 horizontally-scrolling shoot-em-up: Gradius! Gradius was originally packaged with a unique storage technology for an even more unique arcade system! Konami created the Bubble System around 1985 for arcade cabinets. What made it stand out from its contemporaries was its use of bubble memory for its games. Bubble memory, unlike ROM chips during the time, stored game data and high score data on the same chip, without the need for having separate read-only and rewritable memory chips. What made bubble memory desirable during its time: (1) it contained no moving, mechanical components, (2) it was small and "power-efficient", (3) it was cheaper than early hard drives / floppies However, bubble memory is not without its drawbacks. In short: (1) Bubble memory is very, VERY slow: It requires to be heated to 40-50 degrees celsius to work correctly, and read/write times are slow because of how data is stored (it's a very long sequence of 1/0 bits in a loop), (2) It was very sensitive to magnetic interference (something that arcade cabinets weren't protected from), (3) B.M. modules were expensive in comparison to newer hard drives, which gained a higher data density at a more affordable cost. For more information about the cautionary tale of bubble memory, check it out on Wikipedia! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_memory #music #vintage #arcade #games
