Second Life of MFM Hard Drives - Iambic Telegraph Key

by Andy UU1CC

7.8K157

Intro: Second Life of MFM Hard Drives - Iambic Telegraph Key

timelesson.blogspot.com/2010/02/second-life-of-dead-mfm-hard-drives.html

Do you remember a MFM hard drives? Not too fast, but very large - 20 Mb in the 5 inch rack, it was a something special! Times gone and those beautiful drives decided to rest in peace. In peace? No way!

One note - if you don't know wha-da-heck is Iambic Key, visit Wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraph_key As for me, this key is my way to communicate World. Our Old Good World.

STEP 1: Extracting Heads From Dead Drives

There are best-of-the-best bearings inside. Because it is.

STEP 2: Cut Off Fag End


STEP 3: Breadboarding and Making the Plastic Base.

Breadboarding - making something using wife's bread board en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadboard. In my case board was slightly rustic.

STEP 4: Assembling and Assembled Views


STEP 5: Comunicating Using New Keyer






7 Comments

wcgems 11 years ago

What are the pins on the front from? Is the speed adjustable? The two wire on top, what are the connected to on the top and bottom?

jeff-o 14 years ago

Have you got any videos of your telegraph key in use?

Andy UU1CC 14 years ago

Well, I'm trying - never did it before. Maybe hour or two later.

jeff-o 14 years ago

Cool.  I suggest typing out a message in Morse code for us to decode!

jeff-o 14 years ago

Hey, that sounds really nice!  Of course I have no idea what the message was.  ;)