So I saw some youtube videos of people using moppy, and thought I'd give it a shot.. Never had an arduino, or other microcontrollers, but I work on computers, know how to solder, and have all the parts I need.
This is the moppy project I'm referring to if you're unfamiliar.
I have an arduino uno r3, the 6 floppy drives, and a power supply set up with 6 floppy power connectors. I think I can handle the java/netbeans part and uploading to the arduino..
What I'm stuck on - Connecting the floppies to the arduinos.. At first I was going to take apart floppy cables and solder one side the floppy, but I can't figure out how I would attach that to the arduino ports.
Do I need specific cables to plug in to the arduino? Also, do I need a bread board to hook up 6 arduinos?
From the page you referenced:
"I built Moppy using an Arduino UNO, though it should work just fine on most Arduinos. The pins are connected in pairs to floppy drives as follows: Even pins (2,4,6...) are connected to each drive's STEP pin, the matching odd pins (3,5,7...) are connected to the each drive's DIRECTION control pin. So the first floppy would be connected to pin 2 & 3, the second floppy to 4 & 5, and so on."
Looks like you need three wires to each drive: Step, Direction, and Ground.
I guess I wasn't very clear.. Before I bought the arduino, I thought there were pins that I could wrap a wire on. It turns out there is a hole that I need to stick a pin in.. Do I need to buy specific wires that have pins on them, or can I cram regular unshielded wires down in there??