[Coco] Bubble Memory

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 15 August 2017 08:40:06 Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:

> On Mon, August 14, 2017 11:13 pm, Carlos Camacho wrote:
> > I feel like it was just yesterday when I opened up TCCM and read
> > that 128KB bubble memory upgrade article for the CoCo. All I could
> > think of with my 16K was, "I'll be happy with a 32KB piggy back...
> > 128KB was insane...who in their mind would need so much memory?"
>
> Was that my article? I can't remember. But I do remember the
> circumstances.
>
> Green Mountain Micro had developed a bubble memory board for the CoCo
> using Intel's bubble memory components. Jake Commander -- guitarist
> and programmer with a great story about Eric Clapton -- wrote the
> operating system. We were ready to go into production. The PC boards
> were designed and the first batch was on the way. It was all very
> exciting.
>
> We were visited on a Friday by the Intel tech person and salesman. We
> put in an order for the bubble memory and support chips -- I forget
> how many. 25 sets? Not sure. But yes, it was all very exciting.
>
> We called Intel on Monday to confirm the order. The number was
> disconnected. It turns out the entire bubble memory division was
> closed down over the weekend.
>
> And there we were. An expensive failed product investment. We sold the
> few bubble memories we had to recover some of the expense. As I
> recall, it was the last time Jake Commander and I worked together.
>
> Dennis

Now there's a familiar name, Dennis.  What ever became of Jake?

I fixed one bug when the white coco2's came with rsbasic 1.1 and used his 
line editor in rsbasic until well after the coco3 was out. I'd found a 
kilobyte or two the coco's weren't using in high ram and my loader put 
it there, saving the low ram location for bigger basic proggies.  That 
was some of the most ingenious programming I had ever seen at that point 
and I learned a lot walking around in Jakes code.

But he disappeared from the coco scene and I've not seen his name in 
print since, till now.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
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