Not just any dot matrix printer would do. The duo carefully auditioned each printer to understand the sounds it would make.

"You probably wouldn't notice unless you were paying close attention, but the sound that each printer makes is very, very different from one instance to another. Completely different. Some of them print a lot faster. Some of them print slower. Some have low rumbly sounds. Some of them are more spiky," Madan said. Assembled, they make an orchestra. "We have our bass section, our tenors and our little soloists that can play very fast and virtuosic things," he said.

Each printer is paired with an old PC, all of which are networked to a file server. At the beginning of the performance, each computer downloads the text it will print from a file server. Each then waits for instructions from another server, an old Next box in this case, for when to print some text on its printer.

Madan pointed out that this setup actually closely resembles that of a standard symphony orchestra: The PC is the musician, the text file is the score, the printer is the instrument, and the server, which instructs the PCs at the precise moment when to print a section of their files, serves as the conductor. The duo were helped out on the technical side of assembling this virtual orchestra by Thaddeus Thomas and David Ozsvari.

Not only does each printer have a unique sound, but the text files themselves vary the audible output each printer makes. "Every character sounds different. If you print an entire row of 'a's it will have a different sound than an entire row of 'e's," Madan said. The text can be used to alter rhythm as well: A succession of shorter lines will have a faster beat than a succession of longer ones.