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Tech

The Floppotron Is Back to Wish You a Merry Christmas

Device recreates the 1984 Christmas pop hit with 64 floppy disk drives, eight hard disks, and two scanners.

Christmas is such a traditional holiday, but if you'd like this year's yuletide seasoned with a side of technology, Pawel Zadrożniak "Floppotron" has you covered with a cover of Wham's 1984 hit "Last Christmas."

It's kind of a perfect match. The Floppotron is composed of 64 floppy disk drives, eight hard disks, and two scanners, most of which appear to date from the 1980s. "Last Christmas," for its part, is a quintessentially '80s song, complete with a an unforgettable music video featuring Wham! frontman George Michael rocking a mullet MacGyver would envy. If you've never heard it (poor thing) and need a point of comparison, check out the video below.

Nostalgic kitsch aside, it's also simply an impressive cover. It starts out slowly, using minimal hardware, and builds until almost every floppy drive and hard disk is whirring and buzzing away, with the melody being "sung" by manipulating the magnetic heads on the scanners. Somehow the music never gets lost in the racket.

We've covered the Floppotron before, beginning with Zadrożniak's cover of the "Imperial March" from Star Wars and later with the theme from Pokémon Go. The actual machine looks much the same as it did earlier this year, but Zadrożniak at least helped it get into the festive spirit with a string of lights and a Christmas hat. You can read more about how it works on Zadrożniak's website.