QRTape is a reel-to-reel QR code music player

QR codes are normally used to convey short snippets of information, such as web addresses. Chain a few of them together, as “The Resistor Network” was able to do in the video below, and you can produce a non-negligible amount of storage.

Dubbed QRTape, the project employs custom software to break up a song, encoded using the efficient Opus codec, into small chunks that can be embedded onto individual QR codes. These are printed on a continuous strip of paper by a thermal printer and read for audio playback via a webcam.

To keep the music flowing, this hacker created a cardboard reel-to-reel player that pulls the ribbon of codes past the camera with the help of an Arduino-controlled stepper setup.