Hello! Here’s an English translation of my previos post. My English isn’t perfect so there might be some mistakes ;-).
Summer holidays are comming to an end, I have passed all september exams and now I am procrastinating doing some dumb things instead finishing two other, more serious projects ;-).
Here’s what polish AGH University of Science and Technology students do in their free time. I’d like to introduce my another, totally useless device – a musical floppy drives.
First attempt:
And now it’s time for the double:
How does it work?
It’s nothing new and it’s very simple. The sound comes from a magnetic head moved by stepper motor. To make a specific sound, head must be moved with appropriate frequency.
FDD has a simple interface – the description may be found for example [ HERE ]. To move the head you need to activate the drive by pulling the DRVSB0 or 1 (depends on the cable you have and the connector – notice the crossover on the FDD ribbon cable) pin low and then falling edge on STEP pin makes the head move one step in direction dependent on DIR pin state.
An ATMega microcontroller is generating those frequencies and it makes the drives play music.
Now it’s tome to call some older buddies (5,25′ or 8′ drivers) and make an orchestra!
[…] Source: Silent.org.pl […]
[…] Silent.org.pl Posted by Heather Weaver at 10:12 […]
I would love to see a orchestra including 5.25″ and 8″ drives. (BTW There was only one mistake in your English, you wrote tome instead of time in the last sentence. So be confident in your English.)
[…] You can check out the creator’s homepage here […]
Nice, very nice
Super. Czekam na kolejne produkcje.
[…] He programmed a pair of floppy drives to play the Imperial March from Star Wars. […]
Awesome!
I would love to have the mp3 of the Imperial March video as my ringtone on my phone.
[…] eden sinyaller göndererek notaların ortaya çıkmasını sağlamış. Gerekli kodlamaları yaparak da Star Wars'ın o muhteşem melodisini ortaya […]
I saw this on best of youtube and had to ask..how does it work. Husband while he’s a computer genius wasn’t sure with the dated equipment. So thanks for including the explanation on exactly what produces the tones…very interesting! Solved a mystery for both of us!
[…] besloot “werken aan wat serieuze projecten uit te stellen en iets doms te gaan doen”. Missie geslaagd: met twee ouderwetse 3,5 inch diskette-drives slaagde hij erin om de ‘Imperial March‘ […]
This is awesome! I laughed so hard when I heard the Imperial march! Job well done.
Awesome hack! Thanks for sharing this.
[…] You can find out more information about how this was done over at Silent. […]
[…] faire usage a vos anciens materiel informatique By Mouad Mountassif on 30 septembre 2011 in Tech News Tweet Et voici un excellent moyen de faire usage de vos anciens lecteurs de disquettes. La vidéo ci-dessous montre les « Star Wars Imperial March » se joue sur deux lecteur de disquettes, Comment ? Vous pouvez trouver plus d’informations Ici […]
[…] You can find out more information about how this was done over at Silent. […]
[…] autor las llamó Evil floppy drives, y explica un poco cómo lo logró: No es nada nuevo y es bastante simple. El sonido proviene de un […]
[…] besloot “werken aan wat serieuze projecten uit te stellen en iets doms te gaan doen”. Missie geslaagd: met twee ouderwetse 3,5 inch diskette-drives slaagde hij erin om de ‘Imperial March‘ […]
[…] Mise à jour : Tutoriel en anglais disponible. […]
Sick built-in visualizer!
Seriously though, this is really awesome.
Amazing, I love floppy drive music! Have you seen (or were you inspired by) the Diskette Organ?
[…] explains on his blog exactly how he did it. However it works, it just sounds […]
[…] »» Evil floppy drives – English translation » Silent’s Homepage Recommend on Facebook Buzz it up Tumblr it Tweet about it Print for later Tell a […]
Reminds of the this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmoDLyiQYKw
Really cool work, keep up the good work 😀
[…] behind the video we’ve shared after the jump. He explains how to do the whole thing on his blog, the instructions of which will sound like Martian to you if you’re not very tech-savvy. Take […]
Would love to have something like this as a doorbell 🙂
impressive ! most impressive !! 😉
Pure awesome! thanks for that, found it on a major Australian news website
http://www.zdnet.com.au/a-use-for-old-floppy-drives-imperial-marching-339323406.htm
Dont worry about your English, its better than a lot of those that claim they speak it as the first language, and its a lot better than my Polish 😉
[…] behind the video we’ve shared after the jump. He explains how to do the whole thing on his blog, the instructions of which will sound like Martian to you if you’re not very tech-savvy. Take […]
[…] Link -via DVICE […]
like filipe requested, any chance you can write a tutorial for those who haven’t programmed before? Or perhaps give us the list of parts and the code to recreate this? It is really awesome!
Cool!
Give me two, please! 🙂
How much?
You have to make a tutorial how to make it…
awesome!!
congratulations from Brazil
P.S: Super Mario theme*
The godfather theme*
back to the future theme*
[…] this is not new, it is a lovely piece of hardware hacking by Silent, using an Atmel ATMega microcontroller to change the frequency of the stepper motor in the floppy […]
this has so many layers of cool I don’t know where to begin…
[…] No post ele explica como a música é criada. Resumidamente, o que SileNT fez foi criar um mecanismo capaz de mover o cabeçote do drive na frequência correta, gerando o som desejado. Disso para sincronizar os dois drives foi apenas questão de paciência e um bom tino musical. Leia mais sobre: Disquete, Marcha Imperial, Star Wars Post anteriorSamsung e Google marcam evento; Nexus Prime pode ser anunciado […]
[…] auf Silent’s Homepage bzw. Laughing […]
[…] to Silent’s official site: How does it […]
i ♥ u
[…] On avait déjà vu en 2009 un homme s'amuser à reproduire le thème de la marche impériale du film Star Wars avec un disque dur. Voici une performance similaire mais avec deux lecteurs de disquettes (floppy) cette fois-ci. C'est un circuit électronique qui gère la cadence d'écriture et de lecture des lecteurs de disquette, fabriqué par un étudiant polonais, qui explique son fonctionnement sur son site internet. […]
[…] brilliant useless device. More info about this here ! Via make! Star wars lovers click here Share Comments […]
That’s hilarious! Fantastic work 🙂
[…] pitches necessary to send fear into the hearts of a Jedi. But how, exactly, does it work? Silent explains on his blog:The sound comes from a magnetic head moved by stepper motor. To make a specific sound, head must be […]
+1 I desperately need a tutorial ! Please
[…] silent.it.cx Cinema, Hardware, Musica floppy disk (12), floppy music duo, Marcia Imperiale (3), […]
Awesome!!!
Hello i really love this project.
Can you write a friendly noob prof tutorial so i can recreate the lovely imperial march.
Thanks
[…] Magnetkopfes zustande. Einfach ansteuern, fertig ist die Laube. Die ganze Geschichte gibt’s hier: Evil floppy Drives bei dem Bastler des obigen Videos. Allerdings gibt es noch einige andere tolle Stücke auf […]