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!