Floppotron

Did You Know?

• As of April 2019 there are more than one hundred songs played with the Floppotron on Zadrożniak's YouTube page.
• Songs include Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, and Michael Jackson's Thriller.

Development

The Floppotron began in 2011 with just two floppy drives and an ATMega microcontroller. Its sound comes from the magnetic head, which a stepper motor moves; producing a particular note requires moving that head at the right frequency. Public attention arrived when a YouTube video of the Imperial March played on the device surpassed six million views. In 2016, creator Paweł Zadrożniak expanded the instrument to 64 floppy drives, eight hard drives, and two flatbed scanners. Each column of eight floppy drives was linked to an 8-channel controller built on an ATMega16 microcontroller. The hard drives were controlled by two push-pull outputs made from discrete SMD MOSFETs, while the scanner head controllers used off-the-shelf Arduino Uno boards. The Floppotron 2.0 was officially retired on June 6, 2022. Just a week later, on June 13, 2022, version 3.0 appeared with 512 floppy drives, 16 hard disks, and four scanners. Its first public performance was Entry of the Gladiators.

Operating principles

Electric motors in everyday devices can produce sound. Stepper motors in scanners and floppy drives move the read/write or scanning head, and the pitch of the noise they make changes with their driving speed—higher frequencies create higher pitches. In hard drives, a magnet and coil control the head’s position; if voltage is applied long enough, the head accelerates and strikes a mechanical stop, generating a sound like a drum hit. The Floppotron converts MIDI music files into specific instructions that tell these devices exactly when to buzz, click, or stay quiet.