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back to article What a time to be alive ... hard and floppy disk drives play Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit

Dead Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain must surely be turning in his grave at the latest cover of the band's huge hit song Smells Like Teen Spirit, which the Seattle grunge god had famously loathed. The pop song has now been set to the crunching, grinding, not-one-bit-annoying music that can be produced by the sound of hard and …

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  1. Leeroy
    Paris Hilton

    Paris has a headache.

    Sounds better than me trying to sing it on karaoke round the pub !

    3 1 Reply

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Colin Miller
      Reply Icon

      Arduino

      There's an Arduino project that does it. You just wire it to the floppies' head and spindle motors, tell how many it has, and then give it a MIDI fie; it does the rest for you.

      0 0 Reply
      1. Nelbert Noggins
        Reply Icon

        Re: Arduino

        Which is what it looks like he's used.

        I don't know if he does it for the Nirvana video, but following the stairway to heaven video link to youtube he has a link in the video description which gives credit someone who created a video of how to put together the Arduino project.

        2 0 Reply
  3. rvt

    We used to do this with CNC machines many many moons ago.

    1 0 Reply
  4. Christian Berger

    Of course the real deal is when you can get an unmodified matrix printer to sing for you :) It's doable to some extend. Probably the easiest way is to use custom fonts.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Cliff
      Reply Icon

      Yes, it'd be good to see an 80 column dot matrix joining in the choruses

      2 0 Reply
  5. K

    Used to have a dos TSR that used to play Jingle Bells on a floppy drive, used to leave it at Uni... was highly amusing watch peoples reaction as the computer started "singing to them".

    2 0 Reply
  6. pip25
    Go

    My personal favorite:

    "What is love?" on eight floppy drives:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk_XaJ7gE4Q

    This one is actually pretty enjoyable, addictive even. :)

    0 0 Reply
  7. John Tserkezis

    I was a bit concerned the voice coil hard drive wouldn't be able to keep up with the racket the floppies were making - but no, it not only kept up its part of the bargain, it did a bloody good job of it.

    Well done.

    1 0 Reply
  8. David Given

    As a different approach...

    'Hitachi Hard Drive Project' is a track made up of sequenced sounds of failing Hitachi hard drives, and it's actually pretty damn good.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3b7yV4CUaw

    0 0 Reply
  9. iranu

    Is there,,,

    ...a Stephen Hawking mix where he does the vocals?

    2 0 Reply
  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fantastic

    Its good see older music released on new formats!

    2 0 Reply
  11. andy gibson

    Radiohead

    My favourite, as it employs a Sinclair Spectrum

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmfHHLfbjNQ

    0 0 Reply
  12. Nick Pettefar

    Old School, really Old!

    http://curation.cs.manchester.ac.uk/digital60/www.digital60.org/media/mark_one_digital_music/index.html

    1951 I believe. What a hoot!

    0 0 Reply

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