TI Bubble Memory?

From: Joe R. <rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com>
Date: Fri Apr 16 23:29:09 2004

At 10:54 PM 4/16/04 -0500, Scott wrote:
>On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 23:21:27 -0400
>"Joe R." <rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> Today I found a couple of multibus cards made by TI. One of them is
>> marked TM990/210. In addition to a TI TMS9916NL LSIC, it has six large
>> yellow "blocks" on it that I THINK may be bubble memories. They're about 1
>> 1/4" square and about 7/16" thick and are marked "TIB 0203S, 23May80 -1,
>> MSK=627573, 8B, 958-S-40, 24-164-11". They're in flattened out metal
>> cylinders with a black epoxy looking material in the center. There are
>> seven leads coming out of each end and there is what looks like a small
>> plastic transistor clipped to the side of the package. It looks like a
>> transistor but only has two leads so I'm guessing that it's probably a
>> temperatrure sensor. Does anyone know if these are bubble memories? I've
>> had TI bubble memories before but they didn't look anything like this.
>> Anyone know what these cards are? the second one is marked TM990/310. It
>> has three TI TMS9901s on it along with many SSI ICs.
>>
>
>I didn't know TI made bubble memory. Intel promoted it heavily for
awhile. I have an Intel 'Bubble Memory Development Kit' which is a boxed
kit with an ISA slot board for a PC with two modules on it that have a
total of 4 megabits of bubble memory. Complete in the box with all docs.
About a decade ago I plugged it into a 286 machine and verified that it
does work with the Intel drivers supplied. You get a 512K bubble memory
drive once the drivers are loaded. It was apparently intended as a
'evaluation kit' for developers to play around with to familiarize
themselves with bubble memory.
>
>I got it at a surplus store, where it had been mis-marked as an '4 meg
memory expansion board' back in the era after Windows 95 had come out when
everybody was scrambling to cram more memory into their PC to try to make
Windows 95 actually work. They tried to get 80 bucks for it for quite
awhile in the glass case in front, then one day I found it back in the
'junk' bin and snapped it up for $5.

   I used to have one of those too but I'll be dogged if I can find it now.
I turned the house up side down looking for it a couple of years ago. A
friend of mine has about 5 or 6 of them but I doubt he could find his
either. I used to find bubble memory in some of the scrap and surplus
places but haven't seen any for several years. This is the first TI bubble
memory that I've ever seen too. Now I just need to find some docs on this
card and I can install it in one of my Multibus systems. I've been wanting
to find or build a core memory system for one of them but this is just as
cool.

   Joe

    Joe
Received on Fri Apr 16 2004 - 23:29:09 BST