148K views · Jul 3, 2021 · 4:52 · 1 HN recommender · 5 mentions · discussed 2021–2026
Freespin is a demo that runs on a Commodore 1541 floppy drive. It makes sound by vibrating the drive head and video by toggling the serial bus lines, and it keeps running after the C64 that booted it is disconnected.
Why Hacker News points people here: Shared as a favorite example of retrocomputing hackery, a demo that runs entirely on a disk drive.
“which runs entirely on a floppy drive without a computer. Crazy stuff.”HN comment, 2026
“which runs entirely on a floppy drive without a computer. Crazy stuff.”
Favorite demo running entirely on a floppy drive without a computer.
My most favourite demo is "Freespin" which runs entirely on a floppy drive without a computer. Crazy stuff. this video
“Here's a demo running directly on the 1541 disk drive.”
Demo running on a 1541 disk drive, generating video and audio.
Here's a demo running directly on the 1541 disk drive. It generates video by hacking the serial cable that's usually used to connect to the computer, and audio from the drive motors. this video
“A demo, including music and graphics, written for the 1541 disk drive”
Demo with music and graphics running entirely on the 1541.
See also: link -- this video A demo, including music and graphics, written for the 1541 disk drive -- no, it is not a C64 demo, it runs entirely on the 1541 (which has a 6502 CPU and some amount of RAM in it)
“without an actual C64 involved at all”
Demo played by wiring the drive to the monitor, no C64.
The "C64" demo "Freespin" wires the drive's data cable directly into the monitor's data cable to play a demo (including audio!) without an actual C64 involved at all: this video
“There's a demo that plays entirely out of the 1541, you can disconnect the rest of the computer”
Demo that plays entirely out of the 1541 drive.
There's a demo that plays entirely out of the 1541, you can disconnect the rest of the computer: this video
