I am so envious of this sort of thing: [qotile.net]

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.

…

The user presses buttons on an attached control interface to play different notes. As the printer is played, it’s also printing a set of images that are programmed into the printer’s EPROM with the software.

The printer creates sound from the print head firing pins against the paper and the vibration of the stepper motor driving the print head back and forth. To generate different notes, the software adjusts the frequency of the printing process. Higher pitches tend to come from the firing of the pins against the paper, and lower pitches come from the rattle of driving the stepper motor.

…with sound and vision.