Re: [ARSCLIST] Earliest recorded sound update on NPR

[AllenAmet@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 6/3/2009 6:17:24 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
dlewis@xxxxxxxxxxxx writes:

There is  a device at Greenfield Village here in Michigan that is a pair
of flat  copper discs -- square -- on paired turntables. This is an
Edison device  which I believe Gelatt cited as an intermediary one on the
way to the  phonograph.


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This is probably Edison's 213,554, for preserving and transferring  
telegraphic 'messages.' It was executed on Feb 3, 1877, and filed on March 25th.  
The # actually does appear on Edison's North American cylinder phonographs of 
 1888, so he apparently considered it of sufficient 'legal' purpose.
 
 It mentions both indenting and embossing, but there is no reference  to 
sound or the human voice. Conceptually, it introduces the disc and  volute 
(there were strip recorders in 1860 for Morse code), and this kind  of process 
is almost endless, when one looks for inventive origins. I still  like July 
18, 1877 for Edison's own Eureka moment (recording and reproducing the  
human voice). At least he thought so - at the time, which should count for  
something...
 
Allen
 _www.phonobooks.com_ (http://www.phonobooks.com)