Slashdot Mirror
Floppy the Robot
Alien54 writes "Build your own Robot for almost Free..... As seen here where there are complete plans [and pictures] to build a robot from a 3 1/2" floppy drive without taking it apart. The floppy drive has all of the motors and electronics you need to get started and compete in a robot contest. With some old 5.25 inch drives, you can really get some power."
Someone found a use for my spare 5 1/2" drives. Geez.
Does this work for 2x CD-ROM drives, too?
Atleast now we can recycle these drives... Anyone up for a /. BattleBots Team?
slashdotted fast!
If you used an old CD or DVD drive you could build a robot with a "la-zer". You could then hold the world ransom for one million...errr...biiiillllion dollars. Muuuuah ha ha ha... muuuuuah ha ha ha...
You can build your own airplane from 52x CDROM.
Floppy drives these days are of really bad quality... I went through something like a drive every two years at almost no use. Then I rescued a drive from an old 286. It's built like a tank, and still works perfectly.
;)
My thoughts on the robot as soon as the page loads...
.: Max Romantschuk
As NOT seen here thanks once again to the Slashdot effect and resistance to smartly caching a page.
2:50 Am
6 Replies
Server Hurting badly
I guess I'll go back to bed.
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
Cache of the first page
M C:ohmslaw.com/robot.htm+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cache:HC7NCC9Xud
Enjoy!
That server must be a floppy robot doling out bits one by one. And, if you are lucky, it might accidently grab a disk and give out 1.5 megs of data.
Finnaly we have a use for all of these floppy drives. When I built my current computer, I did not put in a floppy drive, even though my case has a special slot for one.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Here's a project that was adapted from Fran Golden's floppy.
Tierce
Tierce
Who sponsors your feelings?
What the description doesn't mention is that the web pages seem to be hosted by... [drum roll] FLOPPY THE ROBOT! Just two disk swaps per page view!
"I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy"
I'd build a giant robot to crush your little 3.5" floppy bots. I'd build a bot out of one of those old Iomega Bernoulli drives.
I will crush all your tiny bots!!
---
Mike
I'm going to kick the next person that I see with their karma rating in their sig.
. . .for a 3.5 floppy drive. They appear to be using one for their web server. . .
You are not the customer.
Step by Step Instructions /. even got to it... or maybe the subscribers killed it. Subscribers: please mirror this!
Construction Pictures
5 1/4" FLoppy II Robot
"Floppy II" Robot Plans
Yea, no pictures. I think this site was crawling before
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Of course, if the federal government had instituted mandatory Asimov controls in robots instead of deciding that that was "anticompetitive and restrictive", we wouldn't be in this mess.
You can also build your own nuclear weapon using a discarded smoke detector and a cell phone.
Anyone got a mirror?
A Related Site With Pictures! /.'ed site, so at least you'll get some usable pics.
He references the
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
They really sting, and could put your eye out.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8 &oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=+site:ohmslaw.com+Floppy+Robo t+
damn, get /. and crash your server.
:P
(next week place my url up and see if my Box can handle more than 10 requests at once..)
sheesh...
less than a dozen replies so far
So we can load linux on it!
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
you made milk come out my nose! thank you!
Seems that the poor guys webserver isn't coping, so here's the Google cache.
So we can load Linux on it, of course.
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
These plans have been around for a while.. a quick google will reveal a few different floppy bot mutations.. Now show me a CD-ROM bot complete with laser guns.
Deography Photoblog
Don't tell me, you boot the robot from a floppy, right?
Table-ized A.I.
Why deal with wimply 3 1/2 or 5 1/4 converts! Go with 8" floppy! Those thing had AC motors to drive the disk and built like a tank. Plus would stomp the heck out of these wimppy robot drives!
get the site here
Your signatures belong to me.
what good is it?
Google has a Cache of course....
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
{Traicovn}
somebody needs to get to work on a robot that generates more bandwidth. none of these links work.
-Look lively. LOOK LIVELY!!! --Mr. Shmallow
-1
And there was me sitting happily with my 8" floppy hanging off the wall
R.
Cheap UK and US VPS
And in other news,
Several so-called "slashdot readers" have been
hospitalized with probable blindness after trying
to get a close up view of their freakish toys
in action...
How... constructive! Everyone knows it's more fun to be destructive! Last time I was bored enough to take apart a floppy drive, I modified it to fire floppy disks halfway across the room. And yes, it still looked stock from the outside. Unfortunately, after a few super-ejects, the force tore the thing apart on the inside. Oh well.
SIGFEH
http://www.tvdsb.on.ca/banting/ICE3M/unit6/floppy/ floppy.html
"that thing ate my floppy" makes a lotta sense now :p ...
... doot doot doot !!!
I build a cool rover with parts from my IOMega Zip drive, but it started making this wierd clicking sound...
JPZ3
--- Worst tagline ever.
Just because you don't get anything out of it doesn't mean it's not fun for someone else. The only reason any OSS stuff gets done is because it takes someone's fancy. Some people would argue that writing code and not getting paid for it could be considered a non constructive realm. However that much mentioned itch is getting scratched by somebody. Don't bag something just because it's not your thing.
I'd much rather see some effort put into more constructive realms...
I am sure many of them would be quite happy to direct their efforts towards what you consider "more constructive realms", if you paid them to do so.
If you don't they'll probably continue to do whatever the hell they find interresting.
Maybe it will be of use to you, maybe it won't, but you are in no position to complain either way.
This is the way things work, you do what you like and others do what they like.
So that's why Steve Jobs took floppy drives out of Macs, to build an army of loyal robots to take over the world. It seems so obvious now.
Nothing from nowhere I'm no one at all
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:LYumJ-IViUcC: ohmslaw.com/robot.htm&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Heh heh, you know what the really funny part about your comment is?
I pulled This off of Fark earlier today.
*Subscribers & ______ laughing behind a 2-way mirror*
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
okay, so they're Google Thumbnails
Respect to the AC who brought these to my attention
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
a true professional.
the phearbot
(note, not my site)
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Today we also show how we can build a ddos-attack from a slashdot post.
would become the RMCA! (Robotic Millenium Civility Act)
and no, cut and paste is not my friend.
I'm smarter than the average bear.
you insensitive clod!
I'm smarter than the average bear.
Well almost. I've definitely used the stepper motors from disk drives. Steppers can be expensive.
What I'm suprised at is the need for a the
1 - 7805 Regulator IC
I'm pretty sure most disk drives already have a voltage regulator already on board. The part number is no doubt OEM, but they're fairly easy to recognize, since they come close to the main Volatge, and usually use a capacitor in conjunction.
------
Oh and by the way.. This page is a year old...
Are you sure you want to build a robot armed with a laser? :^P
Actually I did take apart an old 1.5x drive. The motors work nicely off of a small solar panel. The laser module is cute, I wish I had specs. It has a laser diode & drivers, detector for the bounced beam, and coils to steer the beam/detector with a small lens. Cool.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Should I be worried?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
You mean there is an application for that pile of PS/2 floppy drives? You know the ones, strong, stirty, 2.88meg, and can't work on a standard pc worth a darn.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I just lost my appetite!
link to Google's cache here
it appears that their webserver is powered by a 3.5" floppy as well.
Here is another floppy robot
Did any one else think about this for a second before ruling it out?
Trolls ripping of Dr. Louis Menand? Whats next? Shakespear?
here's archive.org's mirror:
o hmslaw.com/robot.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20020914113646/http://
Go away, or I will replace you with a very small shell script.
Arrrggggghhhh, stop shooting disks at me, you evil robot floppy things!!!
"It's a dog eat dog world out there, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear."- Norm (from Cheers)
got a mirrar of the google cache too? Cause it seems to have been slashdot:ed too O_o
Hey! That's my sig you're smoking there!
i have a wishbone shaped scar on my right hand from a 5.25 drive (placed my hand on it when getting up, at the time my floor was littered with parts), the last thing i want to do is give these bastards legs... who knows what other damage they can do =]
And in other news,
Several so-called "slashdot readers" have been
hospitalized with probable blindness after trying
to get a close up view of their freakish toys in action...
I've news for ya. Robots have nothing to do with why slashdot readers go blind.
This project has been done before not really anything new.
Wise men speak because they have something to say, Fools because they have to say something!!!!
Bear is driving website? How can this be?
Inspired by this, we took apart a printer and made this.
This is sweet im deffentally going to have to take some of those drives i have and make em into these things
Just Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize that most people are stupider than that
Wow, this story appears to have slashdotted not only the page at which the story is hosted but also all the mirrors of that page.
Just makes me wonder if a co-ordinated 'visiting' of a single particular site by slashdot readers would bring that web site down in a similar way to DoS attack!
Now that would be an interesting legal challange.
Heh heh, that's pretty funny. Now who said that?
A sphincter says what?
nope ... i can still see your silly comment! ...
too bad the anthill was to near
23:00 9/5/2546
...
...
TOPIC: DoSA
get a Anti-Higgs gun. aim at revolving CD-motor. Since it's emitting an ANTI-HIGGS
matter "should" disappear. now the CD is free from the motor and rips up the whole computer.
Find someone with a 8x or better 16x CD-ROMplayer.
Don't manually operate the Anti-higgs gun, since the debris IS going to scatter. better
set it on a timer
just a thought
Seems were straying from the cutting edge, since this has been since this web page http://www.tvdsb.on.ca/banting/ICE3M/unit6/floppy/ floppy.html dates Floppy's existence to June 1997.
Some people have a way with words, others not have way.
one yet. Once I have learnt it and seen it in the field I shall make a note to use it at least once a day.
I'm smarter than the average bear.
a beowulf cluster of these....
it had to be said....
Ave Molech Setting
Marge: "See all that stuff in there, Homer? That's why your robot never worked!"
GMD
watch this
Can you turn large robots into super-powered, large capacity floppy drives?
Murphy's Law of Research: Enough research will tend to support your theory.
- I'd build a giant robot to crush your little 3.5" floppy bots. I'd build a bot out of one of those old Iomega Bernoulli drives
I will then make a beowulf cluster of floppy robots which will blast your Bernoulli robot.My other UID is 1337
But then again, what can I say, I'm a relative newbie...
http://www.tvdsb.on.ca/banting/ICE3M/unit6/floppy/ floppy.html
Has not been /.ed yet
Find Boba / bubble tea in your zipcode.
I bet one of these robots is serving the page. I think I smell him burning...
"Ahh...burning! Why was I programed to feel pain?!"
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
The site seems to be down. Here's another site with a nice how-to for those who like to be spoon fed (like me, when I'm lazy..):
critter
--qtp
Heh heh, that's pretty funny. Now who said that?
I'm not sure. My braille terminal is on the fritz.
Finally....
Proof of what bad drugs and in-breeding can do to you...
GET A LIFE...
A good way to widdle away the days of unemployment.
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
Man wish you would've posed that before April first.
I really enjoy reading slashdot, but really this is like 3 years old. My high school science team won a robot contest with this thing back in 2001. We modified it a little bit and wrote a BASIC program and then left the little bugger go at it. It actually is quite amazing, although be forewarned it is more difficult than it looks, my friends and i went through 3 drives to get the parts that we needed or broke or were missing from the other drives. Once built though it is amazing. I probably still have it somewhere i will have to post so pics of my modified "floppy"
Where eye protection while looking at Pr0n!
As most of us could use more memory, better leave the floppy drive in the computer! You can make a swap partition or swap file on it!!! Think about 1.44 megs extra virtual memory!!!!!!
Why people don't check archive.org on a story as OLD as this, I don't know. here it is.
If something I said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, I meant the other one.
HERE IT IS I got all of the files emailed from the author. :-)
... Dennis
He's upgrading the server BW on monday (12 may 2003) by the way
That would be insanely slow...
Imagine a beowo... Awe... Nevermind!
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!