Bubble System
The Bubble System is an arcade system board designed by Konami and used across many arcade games across 1985.
The Bubble System was supposed to have a unique new form of data storage for arcade-style video games. It used bubble memory 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 a modified version of their new G400 BIOS for this project. The main CPU was a Motorola 68000 at 10 MHz. There was a separate Zilog Z80 for sound control, which drove two AY-3-8910s, a custom Konami SCC (K005289), and a Sanyo VLM5030 speech synthesizer. It had a Scramble wiring harness.
A Bubble Memory game can be identified by its booting sequence; it displays "WARMING UP NOW - PRESENTED BY KONAMI" on screen, accompanied with a countdown timer and a small musical tune (called the "Morning Music"). The reason this was implemented was because bubble memory had to be heated to around 30–40 °C (86–104 °F) 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 still working Bubble System. The system became a commercial failure because it was considerably more expensive than ROM chip-based boards (and extremely sensitive to electromagnetic fields, which could easily destroy the game data). 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 two recent games; with the Morning Music being one of the playable tracks in Keyboardmania.[1], and the intro of Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits featuring the song too.
Bubble System games
- Gradius (ported to ROM chips as Nemesis for overseas distribution)
- TwinBee
- Galactic Warriors
- Konami RF2 (ported to ROM chips as Konami GT for overseas distribution)
