A fake noisy HDD for your silent vintage computer

I just finished restoring an IBM PS/2 model 30. Replaced the original HDD with a CF-Card and when i turned it on i felt like... it was missing something

So i just grabbed an ESP32 and put on a bunch of lines of code to simulate an HDD sound

The project goal is to make it as cheaper and easier as possible with minimal additional components

Files Overview

It's fairly simple. There are two files.

Drivesynth.ino Contains the actual code

Sounddata.h Contains Raw audio data sampled from my IBM Model 30 HDD

ESP32 Setup

You'll need to install the XTronical Audio DAC Library

• download it from here
• in arduino IDE go to Sketch > Include Library > Add from Zip and then select the zip file you just downloaded
• Now open the drivesynth.ino file and you should be able to compile and upload to your ESP32

Wire Setup

Pin VIN ----> 5V source from PC (it can be from a PS/2 connector or from the red wire of a molex)

Pin GND ----> PC-GND and Negative Speaker

Pin D25 ----> Audio Output (positive speaker)

Pin D13 ----> PC HDD Led positive Pin from Pin header on motherboard (you will need a voltage divider or a level shifter because it's a 5VPP digital signal and the ESP works only with 3.3V signals)

Todo

• Make it more polished

  For now it is just a bunch of wire on a breadboard

• Provide an easier method to upload samples from different HDDs

  At this moment, sound samples are hardcoded as raw data into the sounddata.h file

• Maybe making a PCB

  Still unsure if i want to make an ISA card or an HDD-Caddy card with molex and various cables