bubble memory

American  

noun

Computers.

1. a storage medium employing tiny, movable, bubble-shaped magnetized areas within a magnetic material to represent data bits.

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bubble memory British  

noun

1. computing a method of storing high volumes of data by the use of minute pockets of magnetism (bubbles) in a semiconducting material: the bubbles may be caused to migrate past a read head or to a buffer area for storage

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Etymology

Origin of bubble memory

First recorded in 1970–75

Example Sentences

Our “portable” computers weighed about the same as an electric typewriter, had a tiny cathode-ray tube screen that showed a paragraph or two at most and stored stories on magnetic bubble memory, which in the 1980s was supposed to replace hard drives.

From New York Times

When we gave up on bubble memory computers and moved to the first laptops, I sent a note to New York asking what to do with these dinosaurs.

From New York Times

Most of these innovations are taken for granted today, but they were new at the time: for example, the flat electroluminescent graphic display, the low-profile keyboard, bubble memory and the enclosure in die-cast magnesium.

From New York Times

And instead of a floppy-disk drive, it used 384KB of bubble memory for storage.

From Time

Inside they found equipment for the manufacture of so-called bubble memory chips, a U.S.-made state-of-the-art semiconductor ideally suited for storing guidance information in missiles.

From Time Magazine Archive