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MIDI, technology standard allowing electronic musical instruments to communicate with one another and with computers. By the beginning of the 1980s, affordable digital synthesizer keyboards offering a wide range of instrument sounds and effects were widely available. Because the myriad of different computer languages created by manufacturers to control instruments limited interactivity, an industry working group convened to develop a universal, royalty-free standard. The first synthesizers using MIDI debuted in 1983. MIDI comprises a set...