Star Wars Imperial March Played By Dual Floppy Drives

Although many have made some sort of music with improvised electronics, few sound as cool as this Imperial March from Star Wars played by two floppy drives. According to [Pawel], “It’s nothing new” and quite simple. This may be true as we’ve featured an Imperial March-playing floppy drive here before, but it was only one drive. Although it may not be the London Symphony Orchestra, the two drives together sound quite good!

According to him, the FDD has a fairly simple interface. To move the head, one simply needs to pull the DRVSB pin low and then activate the STEP pin on a falling edge.  This will make the head move one direction dependent on the DIR pin state. In this case, an ATMega microcontroller is moving everything. An explanation of the pins used in this hack can be found here.

Although it may look like an intimidating hack on the surface, something like this might be a neat project to try with some old hardware and an Arduino or other controller! [Pawel] did have the idea to hook up a 5 1/4″ and 8″ drive to make a full FDD orchestra, so we can’t wait to see what he comes up with!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHJOz_y9rZE&w=470&h=315%5D

36 thoughts on “Star Wars Imperial March Played By Dual Floppy Drives

  1. Don’t fall behind on your ‘quite quota’: “quite simple” and “quite good”.
    Ugh, that’s awful.
    What is it with HaD writers’ obsession with “quite”? Can anyone there type two dozen words without using (or misusing) “quite”?

  2. PJ Allen, You should learn to crochet so you can pick knits all day. I would imagine that if HaD thought they where posting articles that where merely, “good” then more people would complain. As it is, they only need to call the whaaambulance for you.

    1. …the term is “nit-picking”, as in searching for head lice eggs (nits) in someone’s hair.

      Yes, I know I’m doing the same thing, but your comeback was just too terrible to ignore.

    1. oh young skywalker!

      you don’t remember the dark days of the floppy.

      having two floppy drives is essensial for a jedi knight.
      otherwise the frustration of switching floppies will lead you to the dark side.

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