Floppotron
The Floppotron is a musical instrument created by Polish engineer Paweł Zadrożniak
It is made by a synchronized array of obsolete computer hardware programmed to play tunes. The current Floppotron 2.0 build sports 64 floppy drives, 8 hard drives, and a pair of flatbed scanners. The net effect is of a robot orchestra.[1]
Development
First version
The first version of the instrument was built in 2011 and consisted on two floppy drives and an ATMega microcontroller. The sound is generated by the magnetic head moved by its stepper motor. To make a specific sound, head must be moved with appropriate frequency.[2]
The invention gained public notoriety with a demonstration of the Imperial March posted in Youtube achieving more than 6 millions visits. [3]
2.0 version
In 2016 Paweł Zadrożniak improved his previous version of the Floppotron with 64 floppy drives, 8 hard drives, and two flatbed scanners. Every column of 8 FDDs is connected to one 8-channel controller built on ATMega16 microcontroller, the HD is controlled by 2 push-pull outputs built with discrete SMD MOSFETs. And the Scanner head controllers were built using of-the-shelf boards – an Arduino Uno.[4]
Operating principles
Every device with an electric motor is able to generate a sound. Scanners and floppy drives use stepper motors to move the head with sensors which scans the image or performs read/write operations on a magnetic disk. 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. When voltage is supplied for long enough, the head speeds up and hits the bound making the "drum hit” sound.[4]
The Floppotron translates MIDI music files into a series of discrete commands telling the devices when to buzz, click, and remain silent.[1]
Song covers
As April 2019 there are more than one hundred songs in Zadrożniak's Youtube page.[5]. The songs include : Queen's "Bohemian Rapsody", Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", White Stripes's "Seven Nation Army" or Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams"
References
- ^ a b "Behold the Floppotron, a Computer Hardware Orchestra". Mentalfloss. Minute Media. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
- ^ "Evil floppy drives". Silent's Homepage. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
- ^ "Floppy music DUO - Imperial march". Youtube. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
- ^ a b "Return of the Floppies". Silent's Homepage. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
- ^ "Paweł Zadrożniak videos". YouTube. Retrieved 12 May 2019.