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The Floppotron 3.0 (2022)

The Floppotron 3.0 (2022)

5 comments

·February 11, 2025

Stratoscope

I love the Floppotron 3.0!

My favorite piece is The Final Countdown, which fits so well with the theme of the instrument:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-WakfBNHD0

Watch for the blue screen!

gnabgib

Popular at the time (1398 points, 128 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31729040

ggm

When CP/M was still a viable choice to run on an x86 machine, variable speed 5.25" floppy drives were still a thing. They were quite musical simply loading your executables. I believe the idea was constant linear velocity recording was "better" than constant angular velocity, by virtue of right-sizing the recording density across the entire surface.

This uses the stepper motor for the read head, as the source of the vibe. Different, but also very fine. I've only heard the star wars imperial march which felt entirely fitting for the instrument.

pabs3

Music video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGfkPCZYfFw https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43007606

walrus01

the 'floppotron' is notable enough for its own wikipedia page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppotron