I Made a Floppy Disk from Scratch

https://kottke.org/25/08/i-made-a-floppy-disk-from-scratch

67•bookofjoe•4h ago

Comments

smokel•2h ago

Hehe, very nice to see something outside the scope of software or PCBs with this level of useless enthusiasm. Obviously "from scratch" is a bit of a stretch here, but this is the material we come to Hacker News for.

Thanks for sharing!

Edit: sigh, I should probably run my comments through ChatGPT to avoid being downvoted. I like this, I share my enthusiasm. I like the uselessness of it, meaning the uselessness of making a floppy disk in 2025, not the lack of educational value. Sheesh.

MrGilbert•2h ago

Judging from the video, it looks pretty "from scratch" to me. What makes it a "bit of a stretch" to you?

jadamson•2h ago

He didn't first create the universe.

ant6n•2h ago

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent... the universe" Carl Sagan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s664NsLeFM

isoprophlex•2h ago

> not making your own plastic monomers from syngas

why even bother

__d•2h ago

Start with naturally occurring things only.

Mine and refine iron ore to make hub. Mine and refine zinc(?) to plate it.

Drill for and refine oil to make PET for disk and casing. Injection mold casing. Make film for actual disc.

Etc, etc.

I’d be ok using tools that weren’t made from scratch as well, but that’d be bonus ooints.

smokel•2h ago

He uses quite a bit of tooling, including lasers. It's not like he would be able to get this far in the middle of nowhere :)

In a way it is somewhat similar to people writing demos for old computers using emulators. Still great fun, but using these tools it doesn't take a village to make one floppy disk. With modern hardware you are apparently able to pull this off on your own. That would have been almost impossible in the 1980s, when these floppy disks were popular.

I probably worded it badly, but I really enjoy these efforts, and I would never be able to do this myself, even if I had a shed with all those tools!

cluckindan•2h ago

Are you even a musician if you don’t have a goat farm?

How can someone call themselves a programmer when they don’t even mine for silicon!

debesyla•30m ago

I couldn't find an answer on google - how is a goat farm precursor for music? It's an activity that needs herding and shepherds started playing songs for fun? Or..? :o

simmonmt•2h ago

TFA is a very short blog post that says you should go watch this YouTube video. Here's a direct link to the video:

https://youtu.be/TBiFGhnXsh8?si=wra84H0R8fy2XCnd

wowczarek•1h ago

Great work! The video does state this clearly that it was about the journey first and foremost and that's great, but yet to me it feels unfinished when it ends as soon as we get to the really fun stuff, so it's complete in the sense of it being well-produced, publishable content, but it's uploaded as soon as it's publishable, and I'm left with "what, that's it?", as I've mostly been looking at milling and some coating. I get this often with similar videos today. Either it's just me (entirely possible) or it's a sign of the times.

ginko•1h ago

Yeah, I was hoping he'd get it at least to a somewhat usable state where you can at least load a small file (maybe with some file system sector fiddling).

vintermann•1h ago

A lot of honest projects are going to end this way, with a sort of half-failure. YouTube channels which show it anyway are more credible than the ones who seem to always succeed at whatever they're trying.

untech•54m ago

It takes some sifting to find some really good “making” channels on YT. I’ve watched this video and while I applaud author’s efforts, I don’t consider this type of content “good enough” to be subscribing. It felt overproduced and with too epic tone, while giving too little detail on the process, the experimentation, the actual solution (he said ratios are important, but what ratios did he use) and no thorough explanation of what is happening.

The golden standard is Applied Science channel, of course, but there are some smaller channels with similar vibe.

Joel_Mckay•1h ago

These kinds of hobbies always teach people more than expected.

He gets surprisingly close to viable storage media. Nicely done =3

mcdonje•1h ago

Title: "I"

First line: "[YouTuber] PolyMatt"

The article just advertises the video. This post could be just the video.

bookofjoe•1h ago

I for one never ever click on a video link here. I suspect I'm not alone.

5555624•58m ago

You're not. I'll only click on a video, here, after checking the comments

debesyla•33m ago

It's interesting how HN crowd are mostly text (and text with low formatting too!) consumers. Compared to other social media, and even old school forums...

Are we mostly l33t developers here, in love with CLI and Vim? Ha!

bookofjoe•28m ago

In the beginning was the command line

stavros•9m ago

Come on, it's absurd to think that we all follow a stereotype. Some of us use emacs.

EvanAnderson•58m ago

I watched the video when it made the rounds last week. I was impressed with the work and the results. I did wonder, though, if a 5 1/4" disk would have been an easier initial goal, seeing as how the outer envelope is a lot less involved than a 3 1/2".

Razengan•58m ago

Oh so OP recreated the Universe?

zabzonk•53m ago

In the early 80s, a lot of the floppy disks and drives I had to use could have been crafted by cavemen out of a Far Side cartoon.

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