Floppy drives and their accompanying disks may not be widely used anymore, but they’re far from forgotten, as many geeks have used these classic computing devices to recreate famous songs. Continue reading to see five of the coolest that we’ve come across.
5. Masquerade (Phantom of the Opera)
You’ve seen some amazing PC case mods, now here’s a brief look at what you can do with an old computer and a few floppy drives. While this may not be the best sounding version of Masquerade The Phantom of the Opera (ed. note – apologize for mistake in title), it most certainly is the geekiest.
4. Imperial March
Composed by John Williams for Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, The Imperial March is touted as one of the best known musical themes. It’s so popular that geeks are even using floppy disk drives to play it. Along “with Yoda’s Theme, the Imperial March was premiered on April 29, 1980, ‘three weeks before the opening of the film, on the occasion of John Williams’ first concert as official conductor-in-residence of the Boston Pops Orchestra.'”
3. Flight of the Bumblebee
YouTube user “Sammy1Am” recreated Flight of the Bumblebee like nobody has ever heard before, as he wrote “a program in Java to interpret MIDI files and pump data over serial to an Arduino UNO (provided by XpertBOB: http://youtube.com/xpertbob) that controls the floppy drives.” This “orchestral interlude [was] written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, composed in 1899�1900.”
2. Bad Romance
According to “lameandstupid” on YouTube: “Freeduino + Teac Floppy Drive + Code = Music” In other words, the combination of those things equated to a unique version of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. This track “reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, Irish Singles Chart, Canadian Hot 100 and the Swedish, German, Austrian and Danish charts, also peaking at number two in countries such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand.”
1. Still Alive
Finally, the number one song, and it’s none other than a “floppy-drive rendition of Still Alive, by Jonathan Coulton from the hit game Portal.” For those who don’t already know, “the song originated in a meeting between two Valve developers and Coulton about him writing a song for the company, which Coulton accepted as he was a fan of the Half-Life series.”
