Maker Rob Smith has constructed a recreation of Whack-a-Mole with a distinction: the “moles” are literally 3.5″ floppy disks, appropriately sufficient beneath the management of a Commodore Amiga working AMOS.
“The sport is impressed by these whack-a-mole type video games, and the toughest half was to get the disks to typically pop up, and typically come out utterly with out having to have stupidly highly effective solenoids,” Smith explains of the bizarre machine. “After I would prototyped certainly one of these drives I constructed 5, after which created the electronics to regulate them utilizing MOSFET and bridge motor drivers, all linked as much as a number of Arduinos.”
For individuals who grew up after the period of moveable magnetic media, floppy disks had been launched as a sooner, extra handy, various to magnetic tape and earlier than it paper tape and punch playing cards. Initially residing as much as their identify, being housed in 8″ or later 5.25″ versatile plastic envelopes, later 3.5″ floppy disks firmed up with inflexible plastic and a metallic shutter that protected the magnetic disc itself. Utilizing one was a tactile affair: slot the disk house within the drive with a satisfying clunk, hear the heads chittering and chugging as they learn and write, then eject it with a agency push of the button — and, if the spring’s slightly sturdy, catch it because it flies out of the drive.
It is this latter a part of the method that impressed Smith’s construct. The “floppy drives,” put in higgledy-piggledy within the high of a field, are able to not solely ejecting however re-inserting the disks robotically. The drives are beneath the management of three Arduino UNO-compatible microcontrollers, that are then interfaced to a period-appropriate Commodore Amiga. It is this microcomputer, which span the late Nineteen Eighties to Nineties interval in house and enterprise computing, which is in cost: the whack-a-disk recreation itself, dubbed DiskFight, is programmed in AMOS, a variant of BASIC developed particularly for the Amiga and constructing on the sooner STOS for the rival Atari ST.
“The Arduinos all had their serial ports linked along with a easy ‘solely reply if you happen to perceive the message’ protocol,” Smith explains. “Lastly these had been all hooked as much as a TTL->RS232 stage converter so I might join it to an Amiga 600. The sport additionally options an ideal 30-second soundtrack by h0ffman.”
Extra particulars on the challenge can be found within the movies embedded above and on Hackaday.io.
