Build A Stereo From an Old Hard Disk 167
An anonymous reader pointed us to an amusing little hack site that demonstrates how you can build a little stereo out of an old hard drive. Of course I don't need a stereo for I am a human beat box.
Surely (Score:5, Funny)
Whenever someone does something cool with music or technology these days, it seems they get SUED by some American company!
C'mon. DMCA maybe? RIAA violation? It's gotta be somethin!
Re:Surely (Score:3, Insightful)
WTF??? (Score:5, Funny)
> Of course I don't need a stereo for I am a human beat box.
I thought marriage was supposed to fix that!
Re:WTF??? (Score:5, Funny)
Translation please... (Score:3, Funny)
Can anyone translate this for me?
Re:Translation please... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Translation please... (Score:5, Informative)
Be careful when using a drill bit that's small enough to wear away a screw of the type used to secure hard drives. Because of their size, they have a tendancy to snap when caught on jagged metal. It's not nice having little pieces of drill bit bouncing into your face.
I've been there.
wbs.
Re:Translation please... (Score:5, Funny)
Check. I'll add that to: never solder in your underwear.
Re:Translation please... (Score:2)
Re:Translation please... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Translation please... (Score:4, Funny)
Except, of course, for that one particular exception. :-)
never solder in your underwear... Re:Translat (Score:3, Funny)
or maybe the whole idea is fluxed up, I don't know....
Not just that... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not just that... (Score:4, Funny)
OK, I read all the advice on this thread and I took my underwear off when I did some soldering last weekend. I don't care what you say, next time, the underwear stays on.
P.S. You're all bastards. I hate you all. Someone hand me another bag of frozen corn?
Re:Translation please... (Score:2)
Thank you.
Re:Translation please... (Score:2)
This easily removes tiny screw heads who are either to thight or have a rounded hole.
Re:Translation please... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:WTF??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Now that it was mentioned, are there beatboxers in the /. community? I have practised the fine art of vocal percussion for a while, but i'm pretty much a beginner when compared to the masters such as Killa Kela [killakela.com], Kenny Muhammad [humanorchestra.com], Rahzel [rahzel2000.com], Scratch [humanturntable.com], etc.
Humanbeatbox.com [humanbeatbox.com] is a good site for information about beatboxing.
Re:WTF??? (Score:1)
However I am supprised. Firstly becouse he is human and secondly that he admits it in public.
But being a beatbox is certenly a move in the right direction.
Re:WTF??? (Score:2)
Old News (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Old News (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Old News (Score:2, Informative)
Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Weapon (seriously.. excellent self-defence tool. Saved my ass once)
2. Ash-tray (screw it open)
3. Toy (Am i the only one who find those rotating plates amusing?)
4. Paperweight
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:1)
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:1)
I'd like to see a few hundred comments about the issue; who's with me?
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:1)
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:5, Funny)
Macs in general... (Score:2)
Re:Macs in general... (Score:2)
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:1)
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:3, Interesting)
Not at all. I think they're beautiful. I have a little display in my study of hard drive platters salvaged from failed hard drives. I take them out, polish them, and prop them up. Illuminate them with a halogen lamp in an ikea bookshelf module... looks pretty cool. My favorite is a 9-platter stack that came out of an old full-height drive.
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:1, Flamebait)
Why did you happen to have a hard drive around when you got attacked?? Was it in a computer engineering lab or something?
"Back, dirty grad student, back!"
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:3, Funny)
Beats being a black and blue hero. In self defense, I'd shoot a man in the back while he's sleeping.
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:5, Insightful)
If you keep nothing else, at least keep the magnets out of your hard drive. They're amazingly powerful for their size... wonderful toys!
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:2)
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:2)
I note that I got 'Troll', yet the O.P. didn't get 'flamebait' or even 'offtopic'.
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:2)
Throwing magnets at cars is self-defense? Were you expecting their density to slow them down before they hit you?
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:2)
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:1)
Then I stuck the magnets to my fridge.
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, and exactly what did you quit smoking?
Re:Harddrives can be pretty versatile (Score:2)
You're telling me. The one in the iPod is particularly dangerous. [digikitten.com]
Anyone know where I can get... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Anyone know where I can get... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Anyone know where I can get... (Score:4, Informative)
Here. [cmu.edu]
Re:Anyone know where I can get... (Score:1)
Re:Anyone know where I can get... (Score:1)
Re:Anyone know where I can get... (Score:1)
Commodore 64 music? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Commodore 64 music? (Score:5, Funny)
I have a copy of "CATALOG: The Commodore 1541's Greatest Hits" sitting here. Tracks include:
- Drive - The Cars
- Step By Step - New Kids On The Block
- You Spin Me Round - Dead Or Alive
- Crash - Dave Matthews Band
I can't make out much of the label after that, can anyone help me here?Re:Commodore 64 music? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Commodore 64 music? (Score:1)
Re:Commodore 64 music? (Score:1)
Re:Commodore 64 music? (Score:1)
Funny... I still have my old copy of, 'The Anatomy of the 1541 Disk Drive' up on my shelf.
Cheers!
SCB
Re:Commodore 64 music? (Score:2)
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Re:Commodore 64 music? (Score:4, Interesting)
I ran a BBS on an old TRS80 with 4 floppies and was sending drives off over alignment issues every few months and that was from normal read/write accesses. Luckily, my local Radio Shack was cool and looking for support from the BBS community and ate the cost.
Us TRS80 users had the tape motor relay as our audio toy. It was a simple coil relay that would make a very audible click when engaged or released. Though there was code to control the speed of access in BASIC, there were no limitations on what you could do with it in ASM. Apparently, the limitation was put in place to keep from destroying tape drives and the relay.
I remember producing some really disturbing sounds, but ended up rigging the tape relay up to the power cable to my modem. With a small bit of code, a few wires, and raped cassette drive cable, it was relatively easy to turn the old RS 300 baud modems into auto-answer. Basically, splice the power cable to the modem, cut the cassette cable's drive motor and connect the two. Then splice the phone cable and connect the two live wires to the audio-in cable, then make a loop in ASM or BASIC that watches for a particular memory address value to jump from 7-10 to 250-255 for a few moments, then issue a MOTOR ON command and close the loop to power the modem who's switch is already flipped to ANS mode. Of course, this had limitations. I had to spend a lot of time tooling code for the BBS that would reduce the chances of a hung, dead connection (if the user hung up without logging out) as there was no actual carrier detection. My final solution was a TSR that would MOTOR OFF and reload the answer script if there was no activity for 2 minutes.
That's another example as to why I always considered Commodites to be similar to what script kiddies of the mid-80's would have been, compared to the more traditional TRS80 hackers. The Commodites downloaded someone else's crap and ran it while us TRS80 ppl got out the soldering iron on a regular basis or learned ASM so all 64k of resources would be usable.
Re:Commodore 64 music? (Score:1)
Re:Commodore 64 music? (Score:2, Funny)
Hell, I thought that's what DOS 3.3 did every time it couldn't read a sector...
Um... (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sorry, but I don't think very many people enjoy the screeching sound of a needle penetrating a harddisk-platter.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wow! (Score:2, Funny)
multipurpose (Score:2, Funny)
YATTA (Score:3, Informative)
The song "YATTA [mit.edu]" will get into your brain and it won't leave. Except that in the hard disk video you can't quite hear it all that well.
Re:YATTA (Score:1)
Havent heard it in months, and its still in there waiting to pop up with summoned.
Stereo? (Score:4, Funny)
Butt it's 1 speaker, so it makes it mono, and that's it.
I thought it was going to be something to play/store music on. Unless there's more, we've been jipped.
Not quite stereo (Score:4, Funny)
My "stereo system", computer with two harddrives is the best source of white noise around. Unfortunately, my power supply is louder.
The Most powerful magnet... (Score:3, Insightful)
what about on the speakers?
Re:The Most powerful magnet... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The Most powerful magnet... (Score:2)
Hard Drive Speakers (Score:1)
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~hsakr/hdspeakers/hds
This was the post from awhile back- (Score:1)
Re:This was the post from awhile back- (Score:3, Informative)
Ok, give this a try. This should be it. [slashdot.org]
Sorry bout that
Re:This was the post from awhile back- (Score:3, Informative)
Beat box? (OT) (Score:2, Funny)
Pa-chew!
Re:Beat box? (OT) (Score:2)
mr. rev "the beatbox guy" [1] aaron
(or so i am called at school, u of mn duluth)
Lots of Spares (Score:1)
You can then show this to your friends, and have them beat you for being a geek...
Would look cool though.
Redone (Score:3, Informative)
Others have done it... here's a 3-way speaker [cmu.edu] reported on
Why are all these people suddenly making projects that have been done over and over, and reporting them as "new ideas"? Just like the jet engine made out of a turbo-charger the other day... that's been done hundreds of times! Heck, it's even been done on Junkyard Wars!
Does reverse engineering in this case (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Does reverse engineering in this case (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes (Score:3, Funny)
This one isn't as good (Score:2)
I'd rather (Score:2, Interesting)
* DIY ipod;
* DIY home media server;
* DIY wireless speakers (bluetooth, wifi);
* DIY ethernet speakers;
* DIY home SAN;
etc.
Regression! (Score:2, Informative)
At last we are catching up with Commodore! (Score:2)
Don't try this at home... (Score:5, Informative)
In any case it would work far better if the coil was kept within its original magnet, and the edge glued to a diaphragm. It is designed to work that way! If you were only wanting a woofer, you could simply attach the diphragm to the existing head arm, but don'y expect any response above a few 100 Hz.
I honestly wonder why anyone bothers with something so stupid anyway.
Retro music! (Score:4, Interesting)
Does anyone else remember making music using the Sinclair microdrives? I don't know what was up with quality assurance at Sinclair (except that Clive couldn't afford any), but the drives all ran at different speeds. So get yourself a dozen QLs (or ZX microdrives, or ICL One-Per-Desks), work out which notes they correspond to (relatively, no need for concert pitch here!) and then get programming! Starting and stopping the motors on the various machines will pump out da choons.
"stereo" != speaker (Score:2)
Re:"stereo" != speaker (Score:2)
Just make two speakers from a copper coils, magnets and stickers (btw in a proper case this doesn't make a bad speaker, those HD magnets are VERY strong, they will destroy a floppy from 6 inches away... not erase, DESTROY.) When you connect the plug, instead of joining the right and left channel wires, take a small breadboard, run two leads off the ground wire and run that to each of the speakers, then run the left and
Re:"stereo" != speaker (Score:2)
Heh. It is, however, a bit too far of a stretch to claim you built the stereo out of hard drive parts! "Build A Stereo From an Old Hard Disk" should have been "Build A Speaker From an Old Hard Disk and Some Other Things"
beat box? taco bell again? (Score:2)
Contributing greenhouse gases by eating bean burritos? And no, it wasn't Cowboy Neal who ripped one; it was an AC.
seen it before (Score:1)
Mirror here (Score:2, Informative)
Hard drive magnets are great! (Score:3, Interesting)
why dismantle the disk? (Score:3, Interesting)
Or build a clock instead... (Score:2)
It's a little lame (the hard drive doesn't do anything, you attach a clock movement to the back), but it's better than throwing the drive in the trash.
I've tried this (Score:4, Interesting)
We hooked it up to extra speaker outputs on the back of an ancient radio amp in our lounge so you can switch from regular speakers to hard drive speakers. The hard drives are actually wedged into corners of a wooden cabinet, and the real nice effect is because they cause the wood to resonate. Overall, the output is pretty loud!
More ways to use old computer parts (Score:2)