Sound on the wire: the story of the telegraph
The first ever magnetic recording device, the telegraph, was invented in 1898. But success came to him only 45 years later, a year after the death of the inventor.
We talk about the appearance of the gadget, its commercial failure and an unexpected revival.
Photo Wikimedia / CC BY-SA
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The first theoretical foundations of magnetic recording were formulated by the American inventor Oberlin Smith. The scientist’s attempts to create a reliable recording device failed, so in 1888 he shared the idea with the public in the pages of Electrical World magazine.
11 years later Smith was stolen by a young self-taught engineer from Denmark - Waldemar Poulsen . In 1898, he created the telegraph - the first ready-made device for magnetic recording. Dane lawyers argued that the engineer was not familiar with Smith's work. True or not, it is still unknown.
Poulsen's telegraph consisted of a cylinder wrapped with steel wire and a magnetic recording head mounted on the chassis. The head connected to the microphone magnetized the wire as the cylinder rotated. To reproduce the sound, the head was replaced with a telephone speaker.
In 1900, Poulsen presented his invention at the World Exhibition in Paris. Telegraph attracted the attention of the public and brought its creator the Grand Prix for innovation. To this day, the voice recording of the Austrian emperor , created by an engineer during the demonstration of the device, has been preserved.
Initially they planned to sell the telegraph as a telephone answering machine. However, the device did not find demand in Europe, and by 1903 its production had practically ceased. Poulsen went out of business and returned to scientific work, the result of which was another important invention - the arc radio transmitter .
Poulsen’s partners decided to start selling the telegraph in the US, but everything went wrong on the American market. Bell’s telephone monopolists have banned connecting the device to their networks, so the concept of an answering machine had to be abandoned. The telegraph began to be positioned as a voice recorder.
But the telegraphs of that time did not differ by a good price / quality ratio. In 1905, produced two models of the device. The first consisted of more than a thousand parts and was very expensive. The second was simpler and cheaper, but used fragile metal discs instead of wire. They contained only a minute and a half of audio.
Attempts to develop a more affordable product took almost two years, during which the company almost went bankrupt. But the new model was not competitive. Phonographs spreading at that time were four times cheaper, and records of popular artists were distributed on vinyl cylinders. The difference in quality was not enough to draw attention to the telegraph.
By the early 1920s, the company finally went bankrupt. The last nail in the coffin of the American branch was scored by Edwin Rood, the new manager who was pinned his hopes on saving the company. He did not consult with managers and made decisions based on his experience in managing watch production.
The next 20 years, the unit used only a small number of European radio journalists. And no one suspected that with the advent of World War II, technology would rise from the dead.
In the 1940s, the American fleet needed a compact recording device, the development of which was entrusted to researchers at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Phonographs were not suitable for this purpose: their carriers were too fragile and required strict temperature conditions. Therefore, the choice of engineers fell on the steel wire.
A new device appeared in 1943 and was named wire recorder, or wire recorder. It could be used in the most extreme conditions - even during a parachute jump . All this made the device ideal for soldiers and military reporters.
At first, wire devices were used as business dictaphones: for example, psychotherapists recorded conversations with patients on them. Then the machines began to buy home. People recorded the voices of loved ones or interesting radio programs on them. Such amateur “wire” recordings have survived to this day: on the website of one of the American museums of technology, you can listen to excerpts from the broadcast of the 1948 election debates.
Someone used the format to communicate at a distance. In 1950, the Wirespondence Club (wire + correspondence, or “wire + correspondence”) appeared in Chicago. Its members sent each other by voice mail messages recorded on a wire.
His imprint format left in the world of music. In 1944, the Egyptian composer Halim El-Dabh (Halim El-Dabh) used a wire apparatus to create one of the first works in the genre of specific music . The sounds of the exorcist zar ritual, recorded by the composer on the streets of Cairo, served as the basis for this experimental work . Also on the wire was made the first entry by Buddy Holly, dated 1949. The icon of rock and roll was then only 12 years old.
The wave of demand for wire recorders did not last long. Already in the early 1950s, tape recorders became cheaper and easier to use, and magnetic tape forced the wire out of the market.
But the old technology did not disappear completely: NASA continued to use it on board satellites and other spacecraft. The choice was dictated by the size of the devices and their tolerance to temperature extremes. However, when strong magnetic tapes appeared in the 1970s, wire recorders were abandoned.
Now the devices are often searched and repaired by people who have inherited coils of wire. Although many of these entries cannot be restored, they are an important part of the history of both specific families and all of humanity.
What we write about in the “World Hi-Fi” and Telegram-channel:
How to turn graphics into sound, and why?
What does the previously unknown recording of the Soviet mission “Zond-6” tell us?
Go
The first techno album to be sold on cartridges
We talk about the appearance of the gadget, its commercial failure and an unexpected revival.
Photo Wikimedia / CC BY-SA
')
Magnetic recording and the first telegraph
The first theoretical foundations of magnetic recording were formulated by the American inventor Oberlin Smith. The scientist’s attempts to create a reliable recording device failed, so in 1888 he shared the idea with the public in the pages of Electrical World magazine.
11 years later Smith was stolen by a young self-taught engineer from Denmark - Waldemar Poulsen . In 1898, he created the telegraph - the first ready-made device for magnetic recording. Dane lawyers argued that the engineer was not familiar with Smith's work. True or not, it is still unknown.
Poulsen's telegraph consisted of a cylinder wrapped with steel wire and a magnetic recording head mounted on the chassis. The head connected to the microphone magnetized the wire as the cylinder rotated. To reproduce the sound, the head was replaced with a telephone speaker.
In 1900, Poulsen presented his invention at the World Exhibition in Paris. Telegraph attracted the attention of the public and brought its creator the Grand Prix for innovation. To this day, the voice recording of the Austrian emperor , created by an engineer during the demonstration of the device, has been preserved.
American disappointment
Initially they planned to sell the telegraph as a telephone answering machine. However, the device did not find demand in Europe, and by 1903 its production had practically ceased. Poulsen went out of business and returned to scientific work, the result of which was another important invention - the arc radio transmitter .
Poulsen’s partners decided to start selling the telegraph in the US, but everything went wrong on the American market. Bell’s telephone monopolists have banned connecting the device to their networks, so the concept of an answering machine had to be abandoned. The telegraph began to be positioned as a voice recorder.
But the telegraphs of that time did not differ by a good price / quality ratio. In 1905, produced two models of the device. The first consisted of more than a thousand parts and was very expensive. The second was simpler and cheaper, but used fragile metal discs instead of wire. They contained only a minute and a half of audio.
Attempts to develop a more affordable product took almost two years, during which the company almost went bankrupt. But the new model was not competitive. Phonographs spreading at that time were four times cheaper, and records of popular artists were distributed on vinyl cylinders. The difference in quality was not enough to draw attention to the telegraph.
By the early 1920s, the company finally went bankrupt. The last nail in the coffin of the American branch was scored by Edwin Rood, the new manager who was pinned his hopes on saving the company. He did not consult with managers and made decisions based on his experience in managing watch production.
The next 20 years, the unit used only a small number of European radio journalists. And no one suspected that with the advent of World War II, technology would rise from the dead.
Golden age of wire
In the 1940s, the American fleet needed a compact recording device, the development of which was entrusted to researchers at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Phonographs were not suitable for this purpose: their carriers were too fragile and required strict temperature conditions. Therefore, the choice of engineers fell on the steel wire.
A new device appeared in 1943 and was named wire recorder, or wire recorder. It could be used in the most extreme conditions - even during a parachute jump . All this made the device ideal for soldiers and military reporters.
After the war, the device attracted the attention of the mass consumer. At that time, the phonographs had become obsolete, and the tape recorders were still too expensive.
At first, wire devices were used as business dictaphones: for example, psychotherapists recorded conversations with patients on them. Then the machines began to buy home. People recorded the voices of loved ones or interesting radio programs on them. Such amateur “wire” recordings have survived to this day: on the website of one of the American museums of technology, you can listen to excerpts from the broadcast of the 1948 election debates.
Someone used the format to communicate at a distance. In 1950, the Wirespondence Club (wire + correspondence, or “wire + correspondence”) appeared in Chicago. Its members sent each other by voice mail messages recorded on a wire.
His imprint format left in the world of music. In 1944, the Egyptian composer Halim El-Dabh (Halim El-Dabh) used a wire apparatus to create one of the first works in the genre of specific music . The sounds of the exorcist zar ritual, recorded by the composer on the streets of Cairo, served as the basis for this experimental work . Also on the wire was made the first entry by Buddy Holly, dated 1949. The icon of rock and roll was then only 12 years old.
Ending popularity
The wave of demand for wire recorders did not last long. Already in the early 1950s, tape recorders became cheaper and easier to use, and magnetic tape forced the wire out of the market.
But the old technology did not disappear completely: NASA continued to use it on board satellites and other spacecraft. The choice was dictated by the size of the devices and their tolerance to temperature extremes. However, when strong magnetic tapes appeared in the 1970s, wire recorders were abandoned.
Now the devices are often searched and repaired by people who have inherited coils of wire. Although many of these entries cannot be restored, they are an important part of the history of both specific families and all of humanity.
What we write about in the “World Hi-Fi” and Telegram-channel:
How to turn graphics into sound, and why? What does the previously unknown recording of the Soviet mission “Zond-6” tell us? Go
The first techno album to be sold on cartridgesSource: https://habr.com/ru/post/441496/
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