MIDI dot-matrix printer does the Hackerena!

There is no doubt that you remember the inescapable ‘90s hit, The Macarena. The pairing of a catchy beat and a simple dance turned the Los Del Rio smash hit into a national phenomenon. Now, 20 years later, we can reminisce about the tune all thanks to one Maker and his MIDI compatible dot-matrix printer.

A hacker by the name of MIDIDesaster has made a habit of turning dot matrix printers into musical devices. Previously on Bits & Pieces, we covered an ingenious DMP cover of the Rocky theme, Eye of the Tiger.

And so, our pal MIDIDesasater has returned — this time bringing back warm memories of Saved by the Bell and Bill Clinton with his newest rendition of a classic pop culture hit.

The modified printer uses an ATmega8 MCU to interpret inbound MIDI data and then feeds the information to an FPGA that essentially tunes the printer.

Though you can find an entire playlist of MIDIDesaster’s songs here, we decided to compile a few of our other favorites below… Disclaimer: Don’t blame us if you end up dancing at your desk or find these melodies stuck in your head for days!

Toccata and Fugue by J.S. Bach

DOOM E1M1 Theme

Having a Blast by Green Day

Everlong by Foo Fighters 

Hysteria by Muse 

Forrest Gump Theme