1 HN user recommended this demo1 month2021–2026score 1.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Shared as a favorite example of retrocomputing hackery, a demo that runs entirely on a disk drive.
Freespin is a demo that runs on a Commodore 1541 floppy drive. It makes sound by vibrating the drive head and video by toggling the serial bus lines, and it keeps running after the C64 that booted it is disconnected.
“which runs entirely on a floppy drive without a computer. Crazy stuff.” (HN, 2026)
Here's a demo running directly on the 1541 disk drive. It generates video by hacking the serial cable that's usually used to connect to the computer, and audio from the drive motors. [this video]
Demo running on a 1541 disk drive, generating video and audio.
See also: [link] -- [this video] A demo, including music and graphics, written for the 1541 disk drive -- no, it is not a C64 demo, it runs entirely on the 1541 (which has a 6502 CPU and some amount of RAM in it)
Demo with music and graphics running entirely on the 1541.
The "C64" demo "Freespin" wires the drive's data cable directly into the monitor's data cable to play a demo (including audio!) without an actual C64 involved at all: [this video]
Demo played by wiring the drive to the monitor, no C64.
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