Hardware hacker wants to make an alternative remote control for his smart TV that would be more intuitive for his toddler child to use than a conventional interactive remote interface.

So what does he do? Build it out of an ancient, 1990s-technology floppy drive. Basic idea is that each floppy disk represents a different stream; user inserts disk into drive, TV starts playing that stream.

Initially he thought of faking it, with simulated floppy “disks” with RFID chips on them that the “drive” would detect. Then he figured that the actual tactile experience of putting a real working disk into a real working drive would be far more effective. So he stores a config file on each disk that contains information about the stream to be played (plus associated display artwork), that software can read from the drive.

Since there is only a small amount of data to be read off each disk, the drive can work quite nicely off battery power. So it becomes a real remote control as in one that is remote, not connected to the TV by any wire. Albeit one that is not very easy to pick up, but never mind ...

<https://www.tomshardware.com/maker-stem/microcontrollers-projects/floppy-dis... labeled-floppies-to-watch-his-favorite-shows>

This is such a cool idea! :-) Cheers, Peter