5 comments

  • alias_neo1 hour ago
    I remember my Nokia N91 which had a 4GB version of one of these tiny HDDs, blew my mind at the time.<p>Man do I miss the N-series, I had so many good phones in that era.
  • thehamkercat48 minutes ago
    &quot;Coded by OpenClaw&quot; written on PCB<p>was this necessary? could&#x27;ve said &quot;Code written by LLM&quot; or something
  • Tempest19814 hours ago
    Cool!<p>I found the old drive that worked with my Canon camera. It&#x27;s a Hitachi 2GB Microdrive from 2003. It says CF+ Type-II. So larger, with a CompactFlash interface, boring in comparison.<p>More history: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Microdrive" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Microdrive</a><p>I&#x27;m trying to remember the camera... Canon Powershot S1 IS maybe? It used a lot more battery running the microdrive.
    • jusssi3 hours ago
      Damn, now I want one just to de-lid one and put it on a shelf. Looks like eBay has plenty of these.
      • raddan1 hour ago
        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.
      • Tempest19813 hours ago
        Tempting.<p>I wonder what material they used for the platter. I once took apart a 1.8&quot; drive, and got a big surprise when the platter suddenly shattered. I was expecting aluminum, not glass&#x2F;ceramic substrate.
  • tda4 hours ago
    Is there a video somewhere of the one inch microdrive with acrylic display shown in the article?
    • voctor3 minutes ago
      <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;will_whang&#x2F;status&#x2F;2014960768249372845" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;will_whang&#x2F;status&#x2F;2014960768249372845</a>
  • wartywhoa233 hours ago
    Lost me at the first OpenClaw mention.
    • wkjagt1 hour ago
      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 &quot;and then I asked AI to finish the project for me, which it did&quot;. That&#x27;s not a criticism by the way, there&#x27;s nothing wrong with the author using AI to reach a certain goal. I just don&#x27;t find that interesting personally.
    • ahartmetz38 minutes ago
      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&#x27;t previously understand, which is still (with some degradation) possible while using an LLM.
    • fancyfredbot1 hour ago
      I was not evicting expecting to see OpenClaw here either. It&#x27;s out of keeping with the rest of the article...<p>At least there&#x27;s acknowledgement of limitations and it&#x27;s not just hype. Overall a useful data point in terms of what&#x27;s possible.
    • Tempest19813 hours ago
      Surprised me too. In the end, I guess it&#x27;s a time-saving tool for a tedious task. But reduces the old-school grittiness of the adventure. Still an enjoyable read.
    • jgrahamc3 hours ago
      Why? It seems foolish to have a knee jerk reaction to someone using a tool that got them where they needed to be.
      • raddan1 hour ago
        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.
      • iovrthoughtthis1 hour ago
        I suppose its a bit like winning a first person shooter game with aim assist on<p>It is not an authentic display of pure skill