I recently visited Neil at the Retro Collective to film an interview about the HDD Synth

I'm extremely grateful for his hospitality and allowing me to get the word out about the HDD Synth to a wider audience. This really helped me get feedback about the project and determine if there was an audience for it, which thankfully is the case!

It's also allowed me to ask the people who have signed up for the mailing list some specific questions about what they'd like from this and future products. This is key because I'd like the first release of the device to hit as broad a demographic as possible, by matching the most possible features and form factors as it can.

As they say, you can't please all of the people all of the time - but I think there's certainly a sweet spot to be aimed for.

I've been working to an ISA form factor for some time, as it felt like it offered a series of benefits

• No need for a power cable, it draws from the ISA bus
• Can also read IDE activity from the ISA bus
• No need to find somewhere to mount inside your PC
• Allows the physical controls to be accessible on the outside

However there is also an argument to make the device so that it can fit into a 3.5" drive bay. Not to tie it to the ISA form factor, which means it can be used in any computer (Modern PC, Amiga etc...) 

I've experimented with a 3.5" drive bay that would allow the ISA card to be mounted into it. This would mean if you purchased the ISA card, it could also be easily mounted into a 3.5" bay

As clever as this solution is, I've decided to instead create a dedicated version that is designed to be mounted inside a 3.5" bay so that I can simplify the design and the electronics. This should also make this version cheaper to produce.

There's a mixture of people who'd like the ability to access the controls via a front panel and those who just wanted it fully inside and not accessible.

My plan is to create a custom 3.5" drive bay that can be fitted in either configuration. It will also be produced in a variety of colours, so that it's suitable for use in different types and colours of computer.

Looking forward to the next product it seems that the idea of a FDD Synth has caught the imagination of the most people. Which I'm glad about, as it's a concept I'm excited to start working on

This product will work differently to the HDD Synth in that it will connect to the floppy disk drive cable. This will allow it to pick the signals from the floppy disk controller which tells it when to spin, change tracks and other commands that result in different sounds.

With this level of insight it will be an extremely realistic sounding device that should sound comparable to a physical FDD if it were reading from the same disk.

Exciting!