Watch this badass computer hardware orchestra bang it like Kurt Cobain

While the floppy disk may now be defunct, Paweł Zadrożniak has found a new exciting way to put this old school tech to use. And the outcome is just mind-boggling.

Putting together 64 floppy drives, eight hard disks and two scanners, Zadrożniak has built this incredible computer hardware orchestra he calls ‘The Floppotron’.

In the video above, you can watch the Floppotron cover Nirvana’s 90s classic ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.

And if you wonder how floppy disks can synthesize sound, the answer is simple. As Zadrożniak explains:

Every device with an electric motor is able to generate a sound. Scanners and floppy drives use stepper motors to move the head with sensors which scans the image or performs read/write operations on a magnetic disk. The sound generated by a motor depends on driving speed. The higher the frequency, the greater the pitch. Hard disks use a magnet and a coil to tilt the head. When voltage is supplied for long enough, the head speeds up and hits the bound making the „drum hit” sound.

Besides Nirvana, the quirky musical device can also play other tunes like Darth Vader’s theme song and the intro to the popular television series ‘Hawaii Five-O’.

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via Hacker News