3.5″ Floppy Disk Coasters Protect Tables with Pixels

You know what makes a good drink coaster? A good old 3.5″ floppy disk. But real floppies have moving parts and irregularities that can make them less than ideal surfaces for balancing some glasses. Never mind that they just don’t look as cool as these colorful pixel art floppy coasters.

Artist Tsvetelina Mihaylova aka PXLprincess makes these 3.5″ floppy coasters entirely from fused perler beads, and they look great. They come in way more colors than I remember in my old library of floppies. I seem to remember a sea of black and blue plastic neatly loaded into these tubs that held maybe 50 disks each, with lots of chicken scratch scrawled onto the labels. And remember having to install software that came on like 20 disks? I don’t miss that.

You can grab some pixel art floppy coasters over on Etsy for about $4 a piece. Just don’t try and stick these floppies into your old disk drive. I can’t imagine that would work out well. And remember, Don’t Copy That Floppy!

Floppotron Plays Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” aka The Funk of 40 Floppy Disks

If you are looking for a Halloween scare of the audio variety, check this out. You only have a day until the big holiday, so turn off the lights, turn up your volume, and put Paweł Zadrożniak’s latest work on loop. Yes, the famous Floppotron has a creepy electronic cover version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller waiting for you.

It’s not only spooky and creepy because of the song itself, but when you think about it, this is a collection of dead gadgets that are playing all of the instruments. Dead gadgets now have risen from the grave. Zombie gadgets not with a thirst for brains, but for power. That’s pretty scary when you really think about it.

Michael Jackson would surely approve. Perhaps it will make him rise from the dead to dance along. You never know what zombie technology is capable of. So if you see a zombie moonwalking this Halloween, you may want to look closer. Better yet don’t look closer. Just run. Run before he grabs his crotch and sings “Yooo-hoo”.

This could be the start of some very chilling real-life horror. Hey, it could happen. Anything can happen on Halloween night.

[via Gizmodo]

Play Floppy Disk Games on Your Smartphone

You can already play classic games on your phone. That’s no big deal. But if you want something closer to an authentic experience, where you play old games on your phone USING A FLOPPY DISK, you are in luck. You can actually do just that, and quite easily if you’ve got an Android phone.

Check out this video by Lazy Game Reviews. It shows how it is done using your phone’s USB port to connect a drive, get it working so the phone can read files. Then you can play old PC games and make the process a bit more archaic.

First transfer all of the files, then load an app like Magic DosBox that lets you run MS-DOS programs on your phone, then boot the game directly from the floppy disk. After that nerd magic, start playing your game. The controls are not ideal, but it’s still pretty cool. I like that this guy has a floppy disk drive with woodgrain on it. He gets extra points for that.

Think of all of the old floppy disks that you have laying around. You can play them all on your phone and relive the old days of PC Gaming on a modern device. Try it for yourself using the video as a guide.

[via Kotaku]

Apple II Blu-ray/DVD Drive: Disk to the Future

With the advent of HD and 4K streaming video, you may think that physical disks are obsolete. But frankly, most of the 1080p Blu-ray discs I’ve played on my home theater system look better than even 4K streamed content out there because of the compression streaming services apply to reduce bandwidth usage. That said, this Apple II Disk II drive is no longer obsolete, thanks to its conversion into a working Blu-ray drive.

The old 5-1/4″ Apple floppy disk drive – circa 1978 – was gutted and converted into a working Blu-ray drive by Charles Mangin of RetroConnector. Inside, he’s fitted it with a modern USB 3 drive that can play HD movies and also read and write CDs and DVDs.

I love how it really looks unmodified at first glance. The disk drive door still locks into place, and he even rigged it so the old red LED blinks with drive activity. Priced at $500, it’s a bit expensive given what Blu-ray drives go for these days, but I love the looks of this thing so much that I’m throwing money at the screen right now.

Shut Up and Take My Money: Floppy Disk Coffee Table

Floppy Disk Table

Remember those floppy disks from the yesteryears which only allowed you to store up to 1.44MB of data on each disk? That’s not enough space for an mp3 file containing a full song, let alone a single high-res image file. It just goes to show that data storage has truly come a long way since then.

Paying tribute to storage’s humble beginnings are the creative duo behind Neulant van Exel: Axel van Exel and Marian Neulant. They took inspiration from the classic 3.5″ floppy disk to build the Floppy Table, which is a really cool coffee table constructed from welded hot-rolled steel and stainless steel. The best thing about the table is the secret compartment that’s revealed by moving the metal shutter sideways.

Hit the break to check out more images of the table.

Floppy Disk Table

Floppy Disk Table

Looks good, doesn’t it? If you want one for yourself, then you can contact Neulant van Exel to ask them for a quote.

VIA [ LikeCool ]

Floppy Disk Coffee Table

floppy disk table Floppy Disk Coffee Table
This gigantic floppy disk coffee table was created by Axel van Exel and Marian Neulant. Remember floppy disks? They were like the USB flash drive of their day except you needed like 10 of them to hold any cool games. The Floppy Table not only looks really cool, it also has a clever hidden compartment where a real sized disk’s metal piece would slide open:
floppy table Floppy Disk Coffee Table
I can think of over 4 different things I could put in there, maybe 5. The table is made of hot-rolled steel which is definitely not floppy unless you plan on living inside a blast furnace (not recommended btw). I don’t see a price listed but it says to contact the designers to order one, so why not? (via technabob)

Floppy Disk Coffee Table

Giant 3.5″ Floppy Disk Table Could Store a Bunch of Flash Drives

After you’ve grown tired of your Nintendo controller and VHS tape coffee tables, what’s next? Well if you’re moving your way through the evolution of consumer electronics, then your next move might be this 3.5″ floppy disk table.

floppytable 1

The FloppyTable is made by Axel van Exel and Marian Neulant of Neuland van Exel, and looks just like a giant-sized version of the classic storage medium. Of course, since this version is made from hot-rolled steel instead of plastic, it’s bound to weigh a bit more. The table measures 27.56″ width x 25.59″ height x 17.72″ depth, making it roughly… a crap-ton bigger than an actual floppy disk.

floppytable 2

It’s also got a nifty storage compartment inside, that’s revealed by sliding the metal disk cover to the side. Inside, you can stash your remote controls, or if you still expect it to store data, you can keep a bunch of USB flash drives in there.

floppytable 3

For more info on the FloppyTable, head on over to the project’s website.

And when the 3.5″ floppy table has worn out its welcome in your living room, then it’s time to move on to the iPhone table, right?

[via Core77 via Laughing Squid]