Something for us fellow older peoples.

[Gingerbread Demon]

The keyboard wouldn't be much easier, either. A hobbyist might be able to hack an adaptor between whatever keyboard you have (which VDT? VT100, or something else?) and then remap the crosspointing with software, but it still sounds easier said than done.

If all you want is to indulge in a little nostalgia, there are other options.

The one i have has a nice monitor on top of a thin box with the mainboard in that box and attached to the keyboard via a DIN plug.

It was the keyboard I was interested in. I had already looked at the main board and taken all the big electrolytics off it.. I parts scavange.

 

[Metryq]

Good luck with the keyboard, then. If you can find any documentation, you might be able to make an adaptor. Time to pull out the Arduino and breadboards.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Good luck with the keyboard, then. If you can find any documentation, you might be able to make an adaptor. Time to pull out the Arduino and breadboards.

I'll get someone to do that for me I if I can find someone that does that kind of thing.

My skill is just assembling stuff haha. Mostly kits and scavenging parts that I need for things.

 

[Santaman]

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Spinning up a Seagate ST-4096 you need to crank up the volume but you can hear the beautiful sound of that beast.

 

[Metryq]

Santaman, that clip reminded me of S1M0NE ("Simulation One"), a caustic satire on Hollywood (both old and new) featuring Al Pacino as a director of "art" films. The movie is very stylized and features old tech, like 8" floppies, and naked hard-drives. Future perfect. The naked HDD is inserted into a tray, like a CD, and loaded into the computer.

With the color grading, it's like "geek noir."

 

[Santaman]

I actually still have a few 2.2Gb Castlewood Orb drives lying around.. they still work and they are indeed a kind of HDD platter inside a casing drive with the head assembly and drive motor inside the drive itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlewood_Orb_Drive

My ancient Duron has one of those build in IIRC, I'll see if I can dig out the machine.

OMG, I still also should have an external 100 MB Zip drive..

 

[publiusr]

I've often wished I could have viseted yunkyards over the years--to collect interesting shaped to assemble into sets, toys, etc.

 

[Santaman]

Its never too late to start looking for stuff.
Most of what I have collected used to be state of the art when I bought it or only slightly obsolete..

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Santaman, that clip reminded me of S1M0NE ("Simulation One"), a caustic satire on Hollywood (both old and new) featuring Al Pacino as a director of "art" films. The movie is very stylized and features old tech, like 8" floppies, and naked hard-drives. Future perfect. The naked HDD is inserted into a tray, like a CD, and loaded into the computer.

With the color grading, it's like "geek noir."

I love that movie. It always disappoints me that Simone was just a puppet and had no thoughts or feelings of her own. Still such a great movie and yes I love it.

Just wondering could a hard drive actually function like this or would exposure kill it in a hurry?

 

[Metryq]

I love that movie. It always disappoints me that Simone was just a puppet and had no thoughts or feelings of her own. Still such a great movie and yes I love it.

Just wondering could a hard drive actually function like this or would exposure kill it in a hurry?

Remember that "she" was not an AI, but I won't hijack the thread. Follow this topic to a new thread.

As for the naked hard-drive, I don't think it would last very long. HDD cases are not airtight—they do have at least one, tiny hole with a note "do not cover this hole." It's near the actuator, and I'm not sure what it is for. But even fine dust would soon foul the ability of the heads to track and read the platters.

 

[Santaman]

Hardrives have to compensate for air pressure because of temperature and other factors, behind that tiny hole is a so called labyrinth airfilter to make sure that there's no contaminents entering the drive, hardrives have heads that literally fly (they've got wings) on a extremely thin layer air which prevents them from hitting the platters, that is also why most drives can't be used beyond a certain altitude and not in a vacuum.

 

[Metryq]

Thanks, Santaman. I wasn't sure if that "floating heads" thing I'd read about long ago was still valid. I know many newer HDDs have accelerometers and protection circuits to prevent a "head crash."

So in short, don't take your HDD-based laptop into space with you. An SSD probably won't save you, either, as the power pack swells and explodes.

Warning to any scavengers who might decide to turn HDD platters into bangles or other art: the discs are not metal. They are ceramic and will shatter like glass if one attempts to bend one, or drill holes in them. (Call it experience. Thankfully, I was wearing safety goggles.) The platters sustain a very nice ring, though, like tuning fork.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Thanks, Santaman. I wasn't sure if that "floating heads" thing I'd read about long ago was still valid. I know many newer HDDs have accelerometers and protection circuits to prevent a "head crash."

So in short, don't take your HDD-based laptop into space with you. An SSD probably won't save you, either, as the power pack swells and explodes.

Warning to any scavengers who might decide to turn HDD platters into bangles or other art: the discs are not metal. They are ceramic and will shatter like glass if one attempts to bend one, or drill holes in them. (Call it experience. Thankfully, I was wearing safety goggles.) The platters sustain a very nice ring, though, like tuning fork.

Actually you can hang the platters on strings and they make good wind chimes and scare the birds away. Also the very high reflectivity may cause pilots issues.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

BTW even girls like computers........ Inserts random video found on youtube

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[publiusr]

That's good. I like to see more of that.

 

[Santaman]

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/project-doom-zenmodz.221419/

Quite a nice Doom inspired case mod.