YouTuber recreates a floppy disk from scratch<p>There's nothing quite like the drive to build something just to see if you can. <a data-i13n="cpos:1;pos:1" href="
http://youtube.com/@polymatt/videos?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAafDHrFi6MtALIEyEiHETMPs6qOx9OmMimKkl0rHJT0QNYdNFlx4dQSOrycqVA_aem_ebHb6TJFc1m6RILU1iKWoQ">
YouTuber polymatt[/url] set out to create a floppy disk drive, the favored storage medium of yesteryear, from scratch, because why not. For anyone born too late to have regularly used one, a floppy disk is a magnetically coated, flexible polyester disk encased in a protective shell. Insert it into a floppy drive, and a magnetic head reads or writes data on the disk. If you've ever wondered why the "save" icon looks the way it does, it's based on the shape of a floppy disk.</p>
<p>To start, polymatt measured and recreated the disk enclosure and other pieces in Shapr3D and MakeraCAM, then cut the aluminum pieces on a Carvera Air CNC machine. The magnetic disk itself was made by laser-cutting a piece of PET film and coating it with a suspension of iron oxide powder. After assembling all the components and a few touch-and-go moments, he was actually able to magnetize the floppy disk and write to it, albeit at a very basic level.</p>
<span id="end-legacy-contents"></span><p>We declared the <a data-i13n="cpos:2;pos:1" href="
https://www.engadget.com/2010-04-28-the-floppy-disk-is-dead-and-apple-helped-kill-it.html">
floppy disk dead[/url] in 2010, and in the years since then even those that clung on the longest have abandoned it. The <a data-i13n="cpos:3;pos:1" href="
https://www.engadget.com/japans-government-says-goodbye-to-floppy-disks-214449682.html">
Japanese government[/url] finally said goodbye to the floppy disk in 2024, and the German Navy moved on from the format in the same year. The US government <a data-i13n="cpos:4;pos:1" href="
https://www.engadget.com/2019-10-18-us-military-nuclear-missiles-floppy-disks.html">
only just stopped[/url] using 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate the launch of nukes in 2019.</p>
<p>Polymatt's project was a wonderful dive into nostalgic tech and engineering prowess. Maybe next time he can make a <a data-i13n="cpos:5;pos:1" href="
https://www.engadget.com/how-to-survive-the-inevitable-cd-revival-130013506.html">
compact disc[/url] from scratch.</p>
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<p></p>This article originally appeared on Engadget at
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YouTuber recreates a floppy disk from scratch
