The Phonograph - 4

The Phonograph - 4

It deserves to be pointed out that the phonograph has changed little in the intervening
years from the first crude instruments of 1877-78. It has simply been refined and made
more perfect in a mechanical sense. Edison was immensely impressed with its
possibilities, and greatly inclined to work upon it, but the coming of the electric light
compelled him to throw all his energies for a time into the vast new field awaiting
conquest. The original phonograph, as briefly noted above, was rotated by hand, and the
cylinder was fed slowly longitudinally by means of a nut engaging a screw thread on the
cylinder shaft. Wrapped around the cylinder was a sheet of tinfoil, with which engaged a
small chisel-like recording needle, connected adhesively with the centre of an iron
diaphragm. Obviously, as the cylinder was turned, the needle followed a spiral path
whose pitch depended upon that of the feed screw. Along this path a thread was cut in the
cylinder so as to permit the needle to indent the foil readily as the diaphragm vibrated. By
rotating the cylinder and by causing the diaphragm to vibrate under the effect of vocal or
musical sounds, the needle-like point would form a series of indentations in the foil
corresponding to and characteristic of the sound-waves. By now engaging the point with
the beginning of the grooved record so formed, and by again rotating the cylinder, the
undulations of the record would cause the needle and its attached diaphragm to vibrate so
as to effect the reproduction. Such an apparatus was necessarily undeveloped, and was
interesting only from a scientific point of view. It had many mechanical defects which
prevented its use as a practical apparatus. Since the cylinder was rotated by hand, the
speed at which the record was formed would vary considerably, even with the same
manipulator, so that it would have been impossible to record and reproduce music
satisfactorily; in doing which exact uniformity of speed is essential. The formation of the
record in tinfoil was also objectionable from a practical standpoint, since such a record
was faint and would be substantially obliterated after two or three reproductions.
Furthermore, the foil could not be easily removed from and replaced upon the instrument,
and consequently the reproduction had to follow the recording immediately, and the
successive tinfoils were thrown away. The instrument was also heavy and bulky.
Notwithstanding these objections the original phonograph created, as already remarked,
an enormous popular excitement, and the exhibitions were considered by many sceptical
persons as nothing more than clever ventriloquism. The possibilities of the instrument as
a commercial apparatus were recognized from the very first, and some of the fields in
which it was predicted that the phonograph would be used are now fully occupied. Some
have not yet been realized. Writing in 1878 in the North American-Review, Mr. Edison
thus summed up his own ideas as to the future applications of the new invention:
"Among the many uses to which the phonograph will be applied are the following:
1. Letter writing and all kinds of dictation without the aid of a stenographer.
2. Phonographic books, which will speak to blind people without effort on their part.
3. The teaching of elocution.
4. Reproduction of music.
5. The `Family Record'--a registry of sayings, reminiscences, etc., by members of a
family in their own voices, and of the last words of dying persons.
6. Music-boxes and toys.
7. Clocks that should announce in articulate speech the time for going home, going to
meals, etc.
8. The preservation of languages by exact reproduction of the manner of pronouncing.
9. Educational purposes; such as preserving the explanations made by a teacher, so that
the pupil can refer to them at any moment, and spelling or other lessons placed upon the
phonograph for convenience in committing to memory.
10. Connection with the telephone, so as to make that instrument an auxiliary in the
transmission of permanent and invaluable records, instead of being the recipient of
momentary and fleeting communication."
Of the above fields of usefulness in which it was expected that the phonograph might be
applied, only three have been commercially realized--namely, the reproduction of
musical, including vaudeville or talking selections, for which purpose a very large
proportion of the phonographs now made is used; the employment of the machine as a
mechanical stenographer, which field has been taken up actively only within the past few
years; and the utilization of the device for the teaching of languages, for which purpose it
has been successfully employed, for example, by the International Correspondence
Schools of Scranton, Pennsylvania, for several years. The other uses, however, which
were early predicted for the phonograph have not as yet been worked out practically,
although the time seems not far distant when its general utility will be widely enlarged.
Both dolls and clocks have been made, but thus far the world has not taken them
seriously.
The original phonograph, as invented by Edison, remained in its crude and immature
state for almost ten years--still the object of philosophical interest, and as a convenient
text-book illustration of the effect of sound vibration. It continued to be a theme of
curious interest to the imaginative, and the subject of much fiction, while its neglected
commercial possibilities were still more or less vaguely referred to. During this period of
arrested development, Edison was continuously working on the invention and
commercial exploitation of the incandescent lamp. In 1887 his time was comparatively
free, and the phonograph was then taken up with renewed energy, and the effort made to
overcome its mechanical defects and to furnish a commercial instrument, so that its early
promise might be realized. The important changes made from that time up to 1890
converted the phonograph from a scientific toy into a successful industrial apparatus. The
idea of forming the record on tinfoil had been early abandoned, and in its stead was
substituted a cylinder of wax-like material, in which the record was cut by a minute
chisel-like gouging tool. Such a record or phonogram, as it was then called, could be
removed from the machine or replaced at any time, many reproductions could be
obtained without wearing out the record, and whenever desired the record could be
shaved off by a turning-tool so as to present a fresh surface on which a new record could
be formed, something like an ancient palimpsest. A wax cylinder having walls less than
one-quarter of an inch in thickness could be used for receiving a large number of records,
since the maximum depth of the record groove is hardly ever greater than one onethousandth
of an inch. Later on, and as the crowning achievement in the phonograph
field, from a commercial point of view, came the duplication of records to the extent of
many thousands from a single "master." This work was actively developed between the
years 1890 and 1898, and its difficulties may be appreciated when the problem is stated;
the copying from a single master of many millions of excessively minute sound-waves
having a maximum width of one hundredth of an inch, and a maximum depth of one
thousandth of an inch, or less than the thickness of a sheet of tissue-paper. Among the
interesting developments of this process was the coating of the original or master record
with a homogeneous film of gold so thin that three hundred thousand of these piled one
on top of the other would present a thickness of only one inch!