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Building a Reader for the Smallest Hard Drive

willwhang.dev

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Re: Building a Reader for the Smallest Hard Drive

#11

Post by raddan »

jgrahamc wrote: post #8
wartywhoa23 wrote: post #4

Lost me at the first OpenClaw mention.

Why? It seems foolish to have a knee jerk reaction to someone using a tool that got them where they needed to be.

That’s a good question, and I can’t speak for the parent, but for me, I like reading about a person’s journey of discovery. There were many insights this person did not have because he turned the task over to a power tool. People can use whatever tools they want. I also can spend my attention however I like. Reading about someone using AI is just boring to me.

Re: Building a Reader for the Smallest Hard Drive

#12

Post by raddan »

jusssi wrote: post #5
Tempest1981 wrote: post #3

Cool! I found the old drive that worked with my Canon camera. It's a Hitachi 2GB Microdrive from 2003. It says CF+ Type-II. So larger, with a CompactFlash interface, boring in comparison. More history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdrive I'm trying to remember the camera... Canon Powershot S1 IS maybe? It used a lot more battery running the microdrive.

Damn, now I want one just to de-lid one and put it on a shelf. Looks like eBay has plenty of these.

One of my most delightful discoveries of the early 2000s was that iPod Minis used Microdrives that were pin-compatible with CompactFlash cards. I had a little cottage industry in the back of my office upgrading my coworkers’ old iPods to use bigger, solid state disks. I still have my 256GB iPod Mini. Aside from battery life, it still runs fine, and it is by far my favorite music player form factor.

Re: Building a Reader for the Smallest Hard Drive

#13

Post by fancyfredbot »

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #4

Lost me at the first OpenClaw mention.

I was not evicting expecting to see OpenClaw here either. It's out of keeping with the rest of the article...

At least there's acknowledgement of limitations and it's not just hype. Overall a useful data point in terms of what's possible.

Re: Building a Reader for the Smallest Hard Drive

#14

Post by wkjagt »

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #4

Lost me at the first OpenClaw mention.

I am not necessarily against AI, but in this case, I also lost interest at that point. I love reading about reverse engineering, and to me the first part of the article felt like it was leading up to that. But then it ended with what to me feels like "and then I asked AI to finish the project for me, which it did". That's not a criticism by the way, there's nothing wrong with the author using AI to reach a certain goal. I just don't find that interesting personally.

Re: Building a Reader for the Smallest Hard Drive

#16

Post by ahartmetz »

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #4

Lost me at the first OpenClaw mention.

I did finish the article, but for me, it was missing a discussion and review, probably manual improvement, of the code that came out of the LLM. Reverse-engineering means understanding a system that you didn't previously understand, which is still (with some degradation) possible while using an LLM.

Re: Building a Reader for the Smallest Hard Drive

#18

Post by jrmg »

wkjagt wrote: post #14
wartywhoa23 wrote: post #4

Lost me at the first OpenClaw mention.

I am not necessarily against AI, but in this case, I also lost interest at that point. I love reading about reverse engineering, and to me the first part of the article felt like it was leading up to that. But then it ended with what to me feels like "and then I asked AI to finish the project for me, which it did". That's not a criticism by the way, there's nothing wrong with the author using AI to reach a certain go…

Felt this way too.

I may not have felt this way if the article had discussed this step in as much detail as the first steps - describing what was done by the agent rather than just that an agent was used and the results. It all felt a bit “then it drew the rest of the goddamn owl”.

I’m not sure though - part of the appeal of this kind of article for me is the description of the human emotions - the highs and lows of doing the task - and that would possibly still have felt missing.

Edit: Actually, now that I say that, there was a lot missing. How was the circuit designed, for example? How were components selected?

Re: Building a Reader for the Smallest Hard Drive

#20

Post by adrian_b »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #6
jusssi wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, now I want one just to de-lid one and put it on a shelf. Looks like eBay has plenty of these.

Tempting. I wonder what material they used for the platter. I once took apart a 1.8" drive, and got a big surprise when the platter suddenly shattered. I was expecting aluminum, not glass/ceramic substrate.

Yes, glass was the typical substrate used in small HDDs, even in many of the 2.5" HDDs, e.g. in all the 2.5" HDDs that I had.

It is easier to ensure that glass substrates are perfectly plane and without any surface defects than for substrates made of aluminum alloy.

In 3.5" disks the risk of shattering becomes too great, so aluminum alloy is preferred.

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