floppotron

The next chapter starts here.

Added 2021-06-06 19:10:34 +0000 UTC

I have finally rented the new place. It's a small room in the basement which used to be a storage. Not the cheapest one, but it's close to my apartment which was the priority. It's a 24/7 monitored office building, somewhat noisy during working hours and almost empty in the evenings/weekends when I do the recordings - it's angry-neighbor-safe. I have just bought two large desks and moved some stuff. I'm thinking of sticking an acoustic foam on at least 2 walls and maybe I'll put something on the (super-uneven) floor to reduce the echo.

I did some calculations and changed some plans - the new Floppotron will be a little larger than planned initially. I have collected around 600 floppy drives through last 3 years, so I'm thinking of using 512 (which is a nice, round number). I have spent last 2 weeks on crimping the power connectors and custom signal cables for the floppy drives, and looks like i will need some more cables. It will take longer to build, but it's definitely worth it.

My current goal is to have the machine assembled (just wired, nut fully functional) before the end June. The circuit boards are already in production and I'm expecting to get them in the last week of June. I'm going on vacation in the first half of July, so there will be a break. If everything goes smooth then there will be some software tweaks/fixes left to deal with after the break, but... we'll see. It's engineering - it never goes perfectly straightforward ;-).

I'll post some updates soon.