Tech

Watch a bunch of old floppy drives perfectly play Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

by Richard Howard

I swear I’ve said this sentence before when referring to gear-obsessed musicians or super-tech bands, but Nerdism + Great Music = nirvana.

I’m going to need to capitalize that ‘N,’ because that’s literally the case with Polish engineer Paweł Zadrożniak’s latest video. Zadrożniak has long been on the radar of geek meccas like Gizmodo, but last week he cemented his place as a legitimate Nerd Lord by revealing The Floppotron – a bank of old-school 3.5-inch floppy drives, hard drives and what appears to be a scanner that he’s programmed to play tunes, including the Game of Thrones theme and Star Wars‘ Imperial March. Zadrożniak is no dummy, though, and he’s hit up the mainstream by writing code allowing the Floppotron to play a near flawless cover of Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’ The video’s title? ‘Smells Like Nerd Spirit,’ obviously. It’s honestly my new favourite thing. You’re welcome.