Games

Arcade アーケード

Gradius - グラディウス

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Gradius
グラディウス（ＡＣ）コナミアーケード
Guradiusu (AC) A-ke-do
(AC) Konami Arcade
PCB Bubble Software System -- Ver 1 -- Horizontal Shoot'em-up
29-05-1985 -- Code? -- ¥0.00
Unknown
2/1

Main

Bubble System

Main CPU : MC 68000 @ 10Mhz / G400 BIOS
Sound CPU : Z80
Sound chip : 2 x AY-3-8910 psg
Known games on this hardware : 2 (Gradius, TwinBee)
Interface Harness : Scramble

Back in 1985 Konami decided that it was going to try a new state of the art program storage system to replaced ROMs, it was called "Bubble Software".

Other manufacturers had already tried other magnetic media (disk and tape) instead of roms with some success, so Konami decided to make a modified version of their own new G400 BIOS system.

Bubble memory is non volatile electromagnetic writing/readable memory and was thought to be, at its inception, as a direct a quick replacement for floppy disks.

Unfortunately Bubble Memory proved to be extremely susceptible to electromagnetic fields (not great for something in a arcade environment) and were also more quite a bit more expensive than standard ROM based boards. For this reason the project never got beyond its first couple of games. Anyone who still has one of these systems in their possession and still has it working today is incredibly lucky.

You can tell bubble soft games by the startscreen "wait while system heating up", because the Bubble Memory needs to be heated up to between 30-40 degrees to work properly that's why you get the warming up section before the game starts, they even emulated this "warming up" on the Gradius Deluxe Pack on PSX and Saturn.

Screen Shots