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Paul from Dotmatrixsynth makes musical instruments out of printers, here writes - "I've got an ongoing project, reprogramming the firmware in these 1985 Epson LQ-500 printers to turn them into musical instruments. I originally just wanted to make a sort of homemade mellotron, but it's evolved into a much deeper project. These printers (like all printers) have a computer inside that operates all the motors and handles the parallel port, etc. The software that drives that computer is all on an EPROM (a reprogrammable ROM chip.) I remove the EPROM, erase it, and reprogram it with my own software that I've developed by reverse engineering the printer and its computer." Link.
Dot Matrix Printers as musical instruments...
Paul from Dotmatrixsynth makes musical instruments out of printers, here writes - "I've got an ongoing project, reprogramming the firmware in these 1985 Epson LQ-500 printers to turn them into musical instruments. I originally just wanted to make a sort of homemade mellotron, but it's evolved into a much deeper project. These printers (like all printers) have a computer inside that operates all the motors and handles the parallel port, etc. The software that drives that computer is all on an EPROM (a reprogrammable ROM chip.) I remove the EPROM, erase it, and reprogram it with my own software that I've developed by reverse engineering the printer and its computer." Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jan 16, 2006 02:42 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Music, Retro |
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This sounds like a more elaborate version of Man or Astroman's song "A Simple Text File" from their album, A Spectrum of Infinite Scale. Here's a sample from Amazon.
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Let's not forget about Symphony for Dot Matrix Printers by [The User].
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And before that, there was a dot matrix solo on Pussy Galore's "Dial M for MF" from 1989. I think the song was "Undertaker".
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