As a kid in 1998, I was given an old IBM PS/2 to play games on. It only had one problem: with no USB (naturally) and no optical drive in it, I could not add more games to the hard drive, since the floppy drive didn’t work properly. However, I was curious to see an orange light come on, instead of the more familiar green, and there was “2.88” written on its eject button. What… [more]
Some five years ago, I had a RepRap 3D printer setup running the Marlin firmware on an Arduino Mega 2560 board. With that long gone, I was thinking about some other projects I could try on it: a floppy drive controller, and perhaps a clock, with some neon indicators I have managed to salvage from a 1970s benchtop multimeter of Czechoslovak provenience. Even though I have to admit that it… [more]
As a follow-up to my previous article about the IBM PCjr and its quirks and features, I have decided to create KeybJr – a small open-source project, that allows the PCjr to use a regular keyboard of the era, through both cable or the infrared link. This is because the system did not contain any provisions of connecting a normal PC keyboard… [more]
In other words, finding a more creative use for the Arduino Mega than a neon clock: to be able to read and write all sorts of old data storage media and send’em over USB, blending old technology with new.
Originally inspired by the ArduinoFDC project, I have decided to try a different approach: instead of using the Arduino to talk to a floppy drive directly, why not leave the hard … [more]