The Floppotron 3.0 Now Uses a Whopping 512 Floppy Disk Drives as Part of Its Outdated Tech Orchestra

 The internet's favorite musical performer just got a major upgrade.

Many performers, including singers and musicians, credit YouTube for giving them the exposure they needed to eventually gain fame and fortune. But one performer who’s yet to break into the record scene just received a major upgrade that could finally be their ticket to super stardom.

It was just last week when the roughly half a million subscribers to PaweÅ‚ Zadrożniak’s YouTube channel were struggling with the news that the Floppotron 2.0, an orchestra made from outdated hardware, would be making its final performance. The tear-jerking rendition of Con te partirò (Time to Say Goodbye)—a song originally made famous by Andrea Bocelli— was all they had to comfort them. But now, Floppotron 3.0 is here, and is bigger than ever.

First debuting in 2011, the earliest versions of the Floppotron used just a pair of floppy disk drives that produced sounds by moving the stepper motors that controlled each drives’ read and write heads at specific speeds. The faster they moved, the higher the pitch of the sound they produced. One of its earliest performances was of John Williams’ The Imperial March from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, which to date has been viewed over 6.7 million times on YouTube.

Five years later, the Floppotron 2.0 debuted with some massive upgrades. It used 64 floppy disk drives for the meolody, eight hard drives providing percussion, and a pair of flatbed scanners for panache. It would go on to perform countless classic tunes—everything from the Super Mario World theme to Queen’s We Are the Champions—but on June 6, 2022, the Floppotron 2.0 took its final YouTube bow.

First debuting in 2011, the earliest versions of the Floppotron used just a pair of floppy disk drives that produced sounds by moving the stepper motors that controlled each drives’ read and write heads at specific speeds. The faster they moved, the higher the pitch of the sound they produced. One of its earliest performances was of John Williams’ The Imperial March from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, which to date has been viewed over 6.7 million times on YouTube.

Five years later, the Floppotron 2.0 debuted with some massive upgrades. It used 64 floppy disk drives for the meolody, eight hard drives providing percussion, and a pair of flatbed scanners for panache. It would go on to perform countless classic tunes—everything from the Super Mario World theme to Queen’s We Are the Champions—but on June 6, 2022, the Floppotron 2.0 took its final YouTube bow.
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