This is a fascinating story in its own right. If not too much
trouble, could you email me the relevant pages that you mention here?
I'd love to see them.
Andy Baron
Santa Fe
PS: I'm also well aware of Farnsworth and his story, and have always
been as much of a casual historian as I am a restorer of early
technologies.
On Sep 12, 2010, at 12:14 PM, [email protected] wrote:
I need Ray Wile's "E-mail" address. I've been re-reading his
articles on the phonograph's earliest years & notice that he, like
virtually all writers on the subject, is ignorant of
or has chosen to ignore Charles Sumner Tainter's 1880 Home Notes on
deposit at the Smithsonian Institution which were the subject of an
article a few years ago in "For the Record," the journal of the
City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society Ltd. If
Tainter's 1880 Home Notes are actually what they claim to be then
Tainter is the inventor
of lateral-cut wax disc recording in 1880! I want to submit scans
of the relevant pages of 1880 Home Notes & Tainter's drawings for
Mr. Wile's thoughts since he is probably the
leading expert on this earliest period of sound recording. (I sent
scans of relevant pages from the "For the Record" article to Mr.
Fabrizio,Mr. Paul & Mr. Sutton some months ago but have not received
any comments from them other than Mr. Paul saying he'd need to know
when the were deposited at the Smithsonian. ) If Tainters 1880
Home Notes are authentic, then Tainter should be given credit for
the origination of lateral-cut wax disc recording in 1880. (This
may parallel a situation where for years the true inventor of
electronic television, Philo Farnsworth, was denied credit which was
then attributed to RCA corporate scientists.) If the 1880 Home
Notes were actually written years later & pre-dated (something the
drawings which seem to show an elaborate constant surface speed disc
device nothing like later disc equipment (until the British constant
surface speed gramophone of the 1920s) then they want exposure as a
hoax. Either way, it ought to be of much intere
st to us antique phonograph buffs & Mr. Wile is probably best
equipped because of his past research to explore this question.
Jim Cartwright
Immortal Performances, Inc.
[email protected]
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