Friday Fun: Floppotron

Return of the floppies: The floppy drives are back with multiplied force. Floppy drives,hard disk and optical scanners make music.

Cover of Imperial March by computer hardware orchestra.

How does it work? The principle is simple. Every device with an electric motor is able to generate a sound.The sound generated by a motor depends on driving speed. The higher the frequency, the greater the pitch. Hard disks use a magnet and a coil to tilt the head. The hardware is controlled with microcontrollers (ATMega16, Arduino Uno) that receives data from PC that runs Python application.

Which song would you like to hear next?

Nirvana Like You’ve Never Heard Them Before: Smells Like Nerd Spirit

 

1 Comment

  1. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Introducing the Floppotron 2.0
    http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=216&doc_id=1330298&

    Boasting 64 floppy drives, 8 hard disks, and 2 scanners, the Floppotron 2.0 is equivalent to a small computer orchestra.

    Reply

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