Floppy8 – A Tiny Computer, in a Floppy Drive

This somehow reminded me of the "Access A1200"; A complete and upgraded Amiga 1200 clone that fit in a 5.25" floppy drive bay [1]

I remember the Amiga community absolutely frothing over it a couple of decades ago (myself included). It makes me sad that I can't find any info about it anymore, except for the Soft3 page advertising used versions on the Internet Archive.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20030421150743/http://www.soft3....

Ampro, who would go on to create the PC104 SBC motherboard standard, got their start with a cp/m computer that would mount right on a 5 1/4" floppy drive: https://oldcomputers.net/ampro-little-board.html

Oh hey that’s my Floppy8! Never woken up to find my stuff on HN before! So cool!

I actually just released a video earlier this week about the progression of my SD card based cartridges[0] which started with the floppy cartridges for this. If you like the Floppy8 you’ll probably enjoy seeing the dozen iterations I went through after this blog post haha

I’m mostly a YouTuber not a blogger so I have a bunch of other projects on my channel[1] in a similar vein which you might enjoy as well.

[0] https://youtu.be/END_PVp3Eds

[1] https://youtube.com/@abetoday

Tangentially, if you have some old external USB CD/DVD box collecting dust, especially those with their internal power supply but all will fit, don't throw them away as they are about the perfect case for fitting a SBC inside with the CD drive removed and swapped with a multi card reader+USB ports panel. Bringing out HDMI from the rear in a clean way can be achieved by using "HDMI panel socket"s that can be purchased online for cheap.

I thought it was going to be a computer in a floppy disk that spoofed data into the read heads. I wonder if you could emulate a floppy disk, and if that would let you cheat orders of magnitude more data into a "disk".

Adding weight to the controller stands out to me. On one side, the fact materials and electronics are so small and light is awesome, on the other it might be worth making "bespoke" electronics like this in heavier and stronger materials like wood or resin. I get that the retro feel demands cheap plastic, but going forward, if we are going to DIY computers like this, we can make them to last a lot longer than the commercial world would consider.

Nice work. Good perseverance. I like the idea and the way it came about. Some of the design aspects are similar to a project I am working on that i hope to finish before the end of this year. Its a mainboard on the wall for data recovery with custom made housing brackets for usb ports and switches. Im hoping to add a small secondary display to pipe command output to so I can monitor at a glance my recovery jobs.

I'm kinda sad he didn't go for regular size SD cards (maybe with microSD through an adapter). With more sparsely spaced contacts it should be easy to make your own adapter which doesn't get torn apart when you eject, and it would look slightly more like those PCB-based cartridges IMO.

Still a cool project! I'd love to make something like that.

This thing is beautiful. Makes me want to do something like this but I dont have the time or skill or a 3d printer

Love the build. I think the printer you used was genius in terms of how it gives a super retro look to the label.

When I saw how you had to cut the edges I thought I would share that When printing my own custom labels or stickers, I use a local print shop that has a vinyl printer+cutter. Im not sure what media they would use to make this cool retro look, as I order the durable vinyl for my applications so far. (such as custom bottle labels for a friends birthday). No glue is needed and I have saved a fair amount of cash by using their printer instead of buying one.

Home versions of these printer+cutters start at around 300-400 bucks. Thanks for posting your build, I have found it very inspirational.

I am reminded of Rana systems, who used to make disc drives for Apple II Systems. They announced the new product that was basically an IBM PC built into a disk drive so you could run IBM PC applications on your Apple. They sank the company trying to make it work. At least that’s how I remember it through the fog of memory. The 80s were a while ago.

So what’s the most data we can put on a floppy now?

Really nice write up and amazing skillset!

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these in a Zip drive

That's a 5.25" inch floppy drive.. not a real floppy drive, to me.

90's kid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk

Edit: Thanks @alberto_ol, link fixed.