codec2 VS flashfloppy

I'm currently working on a 2HD floppy disk release of a podcast episode which has taken me down an interesting rabbit hole of low-bitrate audio codecs, floppy disk aesthetics and label design.

The episode I'm releasing is 1h40m long, which sounds like it couldn't possibly fit in 1.44MB, but there's an obscure but free codec mostly used by digital HAM radio enthusiasts called Codec2 [1] which can encode human voice in as low as 700bit/s (roughly 315KB/hr). At that quality setting it sounds like complete garbage, although still barely intelligible, and there are no readily available media players for the it (there's not even an established file format) so I'm having to include complicated ffmpeg instructions in a README to get people to play it, but I think it all adds to the charm.

Funnily enough after searching for days for how to fit the original episode in a floppy (tried low-bitrate MP3, Opus and AAC, all of which fail at the task), and after discovering Codec2 almost by chance, I only then came across an article called "Codec2: a whole Podcast on a Floppy Disk" [2] which I probably would've found if I had started by searching "podcast in a floppy".

[1] https://github.com/drowe67/codec2

[2] https://auphonic.com/blog/2018/06/01/codec2-podcast-on-flopp...

1.5 kbps speech is impressive, I wonder how it compares with Codec2 https://github.com/drowe67/codec2

David Rowe has some information on doing this kind of testing here: https://github.com/drowe67/codec2/blob/master/README_fsk.md

You have a chance with codec2, but I wouldn't expect it to handle any real-time communication. This codec only works for voice, for anything else it's trash.

You also got some samples available at http://www.rowetel.com/codec2.html

FYI (or others using retro equipment with floppy disks) there's a cheap floppy disk emulator called Gotek that can be connected in place of your 3.5" drive and has an USB connector where you can put a thumb drive with disk images.

For that device there's an Open Source firmware project called FlashFloppy [0] that enhances its features. And I've found today that there's an Open Hardware reimplementation [1] of the Gotek hardware that's compatible with the FlashFloppy Firmware.

  0: https://github.com/keirf/flashfloppy

The other side of this coin is emulating a floppy drive in software: https://github.com/keirf/flashfloppy

Flashfloppy.

If you're not too particular, you can pick up a GoTek unit for $30 and use it as-is, with no firmware or hardware mods.

For wiring see the diagrams on this page https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/wiki/Hardware-Mods

I prefer to retrofit old equipment with more reliable technology.

Highly recommend Keir Fraser's Flash Floppy project: https://github.com/keirf/flashfloppy

=)

I thought so, too, when I got mine. Some people do the modifications before selling them on ebay or wherever and so they are effectively plug and play, but I discovered that unless that's the case I needed to do some stuff to make it work. As the other user suggested, you want to get FlashFloppy. The installation process was a little involved to be honest, but not impossible with the step by step instructions I had found. Unfortunately I can't easily link you anything because there are different versions of Flashfloppy and different versions of the Gotek and different steps depending on what you have. I'd start by looking up flashfloppy and looking through the various instructions. Here is a place to start: https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/wiki/Firmware-Programming

Specifically, one that supports Flashfloppy.