A creative user has bought hundreds of worthless floppy disk drives and is now making music with them
A user shows what can still be done with old hardware such as floppy disks and the like. The musical result is really impressive.
Hardly anyone uses floppy disks and old hard drives anymore, because the technology will be considered obsolete in 2022. Hardly any user will still have a drive for floppy disks in their gaming PC, unless they love the retro aspect or want to play old classics from floppy disks.
But what do you do with the hardware that hardly anyone can use today? A user bought hundreds of these almost worthless devices and turned them into a musical instrument. Sounds crazy and it is.
YouTuber only makes music with sounds from old hardware
Why can you make music with hardware? All devices make noise. For example, your console beeps when you turn it on or a hard drive hums in deep bass when you use it. It is precisely these noises that the YouTuber uses to create music.
Using software, he then precisely coordinates how the noises have to be activated so that they emit the right noise or tone at the right moment. You can see the final result in the almost 4-minute video:
What does the computer orchestra consist of? The YouTuber writes himself which hardware he uses for his orchestra. Currently he has:
- 512 floppy drives
- 16 hard drives
- 4 scanners
What electricity does that use? In his video, he also explains how much electricity his orchestra uses. On average, the consumption is 300 watts. That’s about as much as a mid-range gaming PC needs for gaming. As a maximum, however, he has already measured a consumption of over 1.2 kilowatts.
For comparison: With one kilowatt hour of electricity, you can light up an LED lamp with 9 watts for over 100 hours or run your television for around 7 hours.
Playing music with hardware is not a new idea
The idea of making music with old hardware is probably (almost) as old as the hardware itself. There have already been other YouTubers who play music with floppy disk drives (via YouTube.com).
People don’t just use computer hardware, but pretty much anything they can get their hands on. An electric toothbrush or a kettle is then quickly converted into a musical instrument.
You can hear how the main theme of “Pirates of the Caribbean” sounds on electronic toothbrushes in the following YouTube video:
And such somewhat different music videos are really well received by the viewers. For example, a user writes under one of the videos of the Device Orchestra channel (via YouTube.com):
If you had told me 10 years ago that a toothbrush, an iron, a typewriter, a toaster, a PS3 controller and two credit card machines would all combine into one absolute masterpiece, I would have invented a time machine to get to this moment faster.
Due to high prices and scalpers, old hardware was suddenly worth a lot again
You won’t be able to make big money with floppy disk drives or old hard drives anymore. At least older graphics cards have been in high demand again in recent years. Because there were hardly any graphics cards to buy, some users switched to older models. Scalpers and resellers also noticed this and then resold old, used graphics cards for immense sums.
In the meantime, however, graphics cards are affordable again and are no longer thousands of euros above the recommended retail price (RRP). This is especially annoying for scalpers who make big losses with purchased graphics cards.
In the meantime, you can often get Nvidia and AMD graphics cards at absolutely fair offers and no longer have to resort to such strange offers. Nevertheless, you should keep your eyes open, because the next generation from Nvidia and AMD is coming soon:
You should definitely know this about the next generation of graphics cards before you buy a new one now
Reference-mein-mmo.de
