The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

dennis wrote:In a yet-to-be discovered Egyptian tomb, there resides a curious plate of solid gold with a spiral groove on it. It is mounted on a miniature potter's wheel device that has a strange horn and other bits and pieces mounted to it as well.

Ah yes, the long lost tomb of Pharoah Kra-Po-Fohn!

Clockmakers were building high precision mechanisms before the 1700s, although they weren't using interchangeable parts. However, by the 1500s or even earlier they were able to achieve far more precision than necessary to build a basic phonograph. And, as for as precision, Berliner's early experiments proved it wasn't necessary. His first experiments were extremely crude, but they worked.

I think that the real reason the phonograph did not come any earlier is simply that no one considered it as a possibility before Edison and Cros. We have to consider the fact that although Leon Scott achieved sound recording, he apparently could not conceive of playback. I often wonder how he could have been so close and not have seen the possibility.

Patrick Feaster gave a wonderful presentation on the 'pre-history' of the phonograph at the ARSC convention in 2008 when we unveiled the first computer-assisted reproduction of phonoautograms recorded by Léon Scott 20 years before Edison's phonograph. What was so interesting is that no one even thought about the concept of recording and reproducing existing sound. For whatever reason, no serious inventor ever made that theoretical leap. Instead, all focus was on mechanically creating sound, not reproducing it. It was all about machines that could simulate speech, not record it and play it back. Even at the NY World's Fair of 1939 one of the biggest sensations was the "Voder" created by Bell labs -- a robot that 'talked' by virtue of a highly-trained technician manipulating a keyboard.

I have no doubt that a watchmaker with the brilliance of Breguet could have built a working phonograph in the late 1700s -- if anyone could even conceive it. But that goes back to what George referred to in his post: no one in the 1960s, even after the computer was a well-known (if insanely expensive) reality could have made the mental leap to envision the Internet. Even when computers were proposed for home use it was thought that all they could be good for was storing recipes........

The skill existed centuries ago but the concept didn't. It makes me wonder what astonishingly obvious future staple of daily life has yet to even been dreamed about, let alone experimented with.

EDIT TO ADD: Facebook is only 8 years old.......... Can you begin to imagine that the entire concept of Facebook and Twitter and other 'social networking' was not even a dream as recently as 10 years ago? It's no surprise that no one in the 18th century could conceive of a phonograph, as simple as it was.

Well, considering that there was a working steam engine at the lighthouse in Alexandria, and a pretty complex astronomical calculator being used, in the first or second century BC, I wouldn't put it past ancient technology to have figured out the basics of sound recording...

For a proper phonograph, of course you need some sort of mechanical feed - but for a simple, experimental machine, you don't necessarily have to go too far. You might just have a single straight line for a groove, or a circular sound loop on a disc or cylinder. Then, you might have a spiral groove of a very coarse thread: it need not be extremely accurate, if you are recording and reproducing on the same machine. There are also other means of tracking: a rack and pinion, or a belt between pulleys, if either one is suitably geared down.

Perhaps the major barrier to recording sound was the idea behind it: that sound = vibration / vibration = sound. One of the earliest intimations I know of is in the notebooks of Leonardo, where he was studying various forces, and made the statement, "Sound behaves like a blow". Later on, there is an observation of Galileo's: in scraping a brass plate, he equated the sound made by the scraper with the marks it left on the plate, and speculated that running the tool over those marks again would produce the same sound.

It's probable that some 18th century scientist might have put the two together, just when precision machine technology was coming into its own. But it seems it had to wait another hundred years...

If you consider the reactions of people like Scott and Bell, when Edison first pulled the phonograph "out of his hat" - it was rather a collective dope-slap - "I shoulda done that" .... and the rabid incredulity of some academicians, it seems that that logical leap was the hardest to make...

I hope I haven't rambled on too long: but I do find these "what if" speculations pretty interesting.

-Bill

Talking of precision work in ancient times, the Antikythera mechanism is a great example of the precision people were able to accomplish more than 2000 years ago. This artifact is dated to early 1st century BC.

I don't think I am the only one who things about an Edison motor part when looking at this:


National Archaeological Museum, Athens, No. 15987
Source and license info at Wikimedia here.

Although no proof has been surfaced yet, given that, I do find it easy to consider it possible, that even clockwork motor could have been build then. We have lost so many things by natural and home made disasters.

If you have not heard of the mechanism before, it's certainly worth to check out the Wikipedia link.

History is replete with things being invented that were obvious only in retrospect. What was previously missing was a bit of serendipity and a curious mind and, one might add, living in an age where just surviving day-to-day was not an all consuming task.

But who knows what odd early experiments may yet come to light, or what past insights there may have been forever lost to history. In the end I think what was needed was for someone to come along who not only had the insight, but also had the patience and the fortitude to chase the idea with experiment after experiment until they got it right.

Clay

Wasn't there something written by Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac in the 17th century that seemed to describe something eerily similar to a phonograph?

Edit: Found it.

As I opened the Box, I found within somewhat of Metal almost like to our Clocks, full of I know not what little Springs and imperceptible Engines. It was a Book indeed, but a strange and wonderful Book, that had neither Leaves nor Letters. In fine, it was a Book made wholly for the Ears and not the Eyes. So that when any body has a mind to read in it, he winds up the Machine with a great many little Springs: and he turns the hand to the Chapter he desires to hear, and straight, as from the Mouth of Man, or a Musical Instrument, proceed all the distinct and different Sounds, which the Lunar Grandees make use of for expressing their Thoughts, instead of Language. . . . This Present employed me about an hour, and then hanging them to my Ears, like a pair of Pendants, I went to walking.

its like cyrano is discribing with a 17th century point of view what we now call an ipod! (or iphone)
(hanging them to my ears, like a pair of pendands,i went to walking)

well i ask you this did bignose do timetravel??? does it not look like a little book!!
tino

WDC wrote:Talking of precision work in ancient times, the Antikythera mechanism is a great example of the precision people were able to accomplish more than 2000 years ago. This artifact is dated to early 1st century BC.

I don't think I am the only one who things about an Edison motor part when looking at this:


National Archaeological Museum, Athens, No. 15987
Source and license info at Wikimedia here.

Although no proof has been surfaced yet, given that, I do find it easy to consider it possible, that even clockwork motor could have been build then. We have lost so many things by natural and home made disasters.

If you have not heard of the mechanism before, it's certainly worth to check out the Wikipedia link.

i swear thats a turntable on there

there was another myth that a painters bruch could pick up sound vibrations within the paint!

I was about to recommend "One Good Turn" - I found it hard to put down. You can find it at: http://www.amazon.com/One-Good-Turn-Nat ... 0684867303