Floppy Drive Audio Sampler

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This floppy drive sampler was, again, created out of boredom. It doesn't work with PWM, but some sort of FM generated by a 555 timer. A real PWM signal produces absolutely no sound at all. I have a rough idea of what's happening, but not a complete understanding. I'm not asking questions though because it works quite well. The signal from the 555 is written to the floppy drive's "Write Data" pin and is read back by the "Read Data" pin as a binary signal. A buffer allows the output to be disconnected so there are no loud pops when the drive seeks. A 74LS125 or CD4066 both work well.

Here is my first attempt at the implementation

This is it working with MIDI

This is the final implementation with support for multiple drives:

A schematic for the single drive implementation is here
My Arduino sketches for writing samples and using the MIDI interface is here

To use the Writer, open the Serial Monitor in the Arduino IDE. Send an 'i' to step the head in, an 'o' to step the head out and a 'w' to write a sample to one revolution of the disk. Be sure to be playing something into the audio input! The samples have a fixed time length of one revolution of the disk.

For the multi-drive implementation, the schematic is here and the software is here. The functions are all controlled by push button switches, which makes things a lot easier. All buttons and drive control pins are configurable in the source code.