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Music from floppy drives
Aug 31, 2019
Last reply: 6 years ago
5 Replies
Device Orchestra is along similar lines, with electric toothbrushes and an ever-increasing number of googly eyes:
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(uk.d-i-y only)
I know Bryan Cox had an old fashioned floppy drive holder with several in it driven by a module of some kind, and it could play many tunes on the stepper motors. Apple 2Es had a program for it in the bygone days. Not sure it would do them much good. Brian
I think it's here:
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the BBC insist I sign in and I really can't be bothered. About time that bludging organisation was shut down.
2) Yes. There's only 5 toothbrushes, so to get all the notes required it looks like he drove them with appropriate audio instead of their inbuilt motivators. With 5 toothbrushes you can play 5 notes at once to make a chord.
With my link, the flatbed scanners seemed to just be driven to run their motors at different speeds, which meant that what you heard was the natural sound of the motors, but at different pitches. With the toothbrushes, it didn't sound natural. I've connected an audio signal to a motor before, and it just sounds like a crap speaker. I think it's better to hear the device making its own sound.
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