Firsts

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
Date: Wed Jan 14 15:29:17 1998

John,

 Bubble memory is a solid state memory device that has "channels" of
magnetic bubbles in it. Each bubble can be polarized N or S giving a 0 or
1. The bubbles can be pushed down the "channel" to get to the desired
bubble, exactly like operating a magnetic tape. It's also a serial access
device same as a mag tape, so access speed isn't too good. If I remember
right they do retain memory when the power is off and they will retain
memory for long periods (~ 100 years.)

  Joe



At 11:17 AM 1/14/98 -0500, you wrote:
>At 09:50 AM 1/14/98 EST, you wrote:
>>I own a grid laptop; a compass II 1129 to be exact. I got if from my brother
>>who claimed it came from some nasa engineer and the computer played some
>major
>>part in shape shuttle flight/development or whatever. mine works fine, and
>>even has some apps in some extra roms. it's not much of a portable machine
>>though because it still has to run on ac power. gotta love the bouncing
balls
>>screen saver though!
>
>Never saw that screensaver on my Compass 1100. Mfg date on it is 1982, no
>internal drives, no extra ROMs either. The 1100 used bubble memory. I still
>haven't found a good explanation on what bubble memory is. Anyone know? I
>do know that when I got it, there were files in there created back in '85
>that were still there, and I didn't see any battery inside to speak of, so
>I guess this is a feature of bubble memory? I deleted files and created
>some new ones and they saved fine. Trippy.
>
>
>- John Higginbotham
>- limbo.netpath.net
>
>
Received on Wed Jan 14 1998 - 15:29:17 GMT