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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."
Throughout history there have been examples of writers of childrens' stories inserting more adult themes into their works. Many childrens' stories and Disney movies contain sex and drugs, but most of the adult themes have more to do with politics. Authors as a whole are an opinionated bunch, and every once in a while they secrete their beliefs and propaganda in seemingly innocent works. Frank Baum filled The Wizard of Oz with references to the gold or silver standard debate of the time. Mao Zedong's Little Red Book reeks of Communist beliefs, as does the Communist Manifesto. But after extensive research, I have discovered what might be the most frightening example of all. Hidden in the words and pictures of "Green Eggs and Ham" by the beloved Dr. Seuss is a veritable allegory of Communist ideology. From every innocent tongue twister springs a hidden meaning or anagram, and every plot twist shows the "struggle" against Capitalism.
Though the characters seem innocent and pure, just under the surface lurks a deeper, redder truth. The name of the main character Sam is also the initials of the secret Socialist American Militia. Coincidence? I think not. The main character remains nameless because he represents the nameless millions that have not been "saved" and converted to Communism. When Sam brings in all the possible dining companions, it is not difficult to see through the happy childrens' book to the darker underlying meaning. The mouse in the house represents all of the little people who have been converted and now happily toil in equality. The fox shows that smart and clever people have joined the Communist side. The goat is a representative of the agricultural interests that enjoy the benefits of Communism. As you see, this is not just a childrens' book.
The locales were also not chosen by coincidence. The house shows that everybody will have a roof over their head, while the box is representative of manufacturing. The car is just an example of the luxuries people would be able to afford in a Communist world. The train shows that the world would still be structured and happy. Just like in Mussolini's Italy, where the trains ran on time. The darkness represents Capitalism, the "darkness" that is overcome when they exit the tunnel. The nameless Capitalist is nearing the end of his journey of conversion. The boat that is his last locale is an example of the powerful navy under the Communist world, able to destroy everybody else. But the good doctor does not stop here.
Even in his images, Dr. Seuss is pushing his Communism on impressionable children. It is no accident that the only sad person throughout the story is the only Capitalist. Nor is it mere happenstance that the sad wretch is reading a Western newspaper. And the ham that looks like Russia? Nothing between these covers is accidental, down to the red hat on Sam. Even when they go in a tree, it is obvious that Seuss understands that accepting Communism is going "out on a limb." From the red flag the boat is flying to the look of joy on the nameless Capitalist (after sampling Communism, of course), every image is calculated to subliminally drive Communism into the minds of impressionable children. They show Seuss' convoluted image of right and wrong to the world.
When Communists tell other adults to give up their ways, the Capitalists know to just ignore them, but our children, our future, have not been trained yet, so it is very easy for them to fall for Seuss' evil words, especially after seeing the joy and hearing "I do so like green eggs and ham! Thank you! Thank you, Sam-I-am!" (Seuss 62). My research centered soley on "Green Eggs and Ham," but I am sure Seuss used other books to spread his evil. We must protect our children from Seuss and his kind, before it is too late.
I'm not Seth.
Someone found a use for my spare 5 1/2" drives. Geez.
Does this work for 2x CD-ROM drives, too?
damn trolls
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.
Wow, sorta makes those lame ass excuses in the FAQ here sound like more bullshit. Keep shoveling guys.
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.
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It'
. . .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!
Tag it and bag it boys; looks like another victim of Slashdot.
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!
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
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
And what's the use of building yet another gadget-on-wheels that doesn't do all that much, but can be called a "robot". Seriously it's the robotics equivalent to 'hello world'. This kind of thing worries me in all seriousness; there are dozens of worthwhile projects people can spend their time on, coding and debugging work for some of the big OSS jobs that can be really worthwhile!.
I'd much rather see some effort put into more constructive realms... feh, I'll be modded down but this is slashdot after all
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
But there's more!
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...
is why did your mother let you live!
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.
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!
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.
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?
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.
DAMN FAILURES!
- 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.
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!