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KF5JRV > TODAY 19.02.25 23:05l 19 Lines 2152 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Feb 19
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Sent: 250219/0950Z 4813@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQK6.0.23
On February 19, 1878, Thomas Edison is awarded U.S. Patent No. 200,521 for his inventionâ€öthe phonograph. The technology that made the modern music business possible came into existence in the New Jersey laboratory where Edison created the first device to both record sound and play it back.
Edisonâ€Ös invention came about as spin-off from his ongoing work in telephony and telegraphy. In an effort to facilitate the repeated transmission of a single telegraph message, Edison devised a method for capturing a passage of Morse code as a sequence of indentations on a spool of paper. Reasoning that a similar feat could be accomplished for the telephone, Edison devised a system that transferred the vibrations of a diaphragmâ€öi.e., soundâ€öto an embossing point and then mechanically onto an impressionable mediumâ€öparaffin paper at first, and then a spinning, tin-foil wrapped cylinder as he refined his concept. Edison and his mechanic, John Kreusi, worked on the invention through the autumn of 1877 and quickly had a working model ready for demonstration.
The December 22, 1877, issue of Scientific American reported that “Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was very well, and bid us a cordial good night.”
The patent awarded to Edison on February 19, 1878, specified a particular methodâ€öembossingâ€öfor capturing sound on tin-foil-covered cylinders. The next critical improvement in recording technology came courtesy of Edisonâ€Ös competitor in the race to develop the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell. His newly established Bell Labs developed a phonograph based on the engraving of a wax cylinder, a significant improvement that led directly to the successful commercialization of recorded music in the 1890s and lent a vocabulary to the recording businessâ€öe.g., “cutting” records and “spinning wax”â€öthat has long outlived the technology on which it was based.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
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