I am much surprised by your statement that "virtually all writers on the
subject" are ignorant of or chose to ignore Charles Sumner Tainter's Home Notes
or his invention of the lateral-cut wax disc recording. I cite from Steven E.
Schoenherr's article from 1999 on "Tainter lateral-cut electroplate record."
For more than 10 years Schoenherr's article was easily accessible on the
internet: NMAH #287668) - The record pictured above is one of the earliest
surviving examples of a flat disc sound recording. The Smithsonian has one
earlier copper electroplated disc deposited Feb. 28, 1880 (NMAH #312,119), but
it is unidentified. The earliest identified flat disc was an experimental
electroplated lateral-cut disc made by Sumner Tainter who etched in center:
"This phonogram was made Nov. 8, 1881. S. T." This record has lateral-cut
grooves, or what Tainter called "zig-zag" grooves, produced by a special lathe
that cut a wax master that was electroplated with copper. The disc is 10 inch
es in diameter with very wide grooves meant to be reproduced with the air-jet
apparatus Chichester Bell had developed in 1881. The disc was made several
months after the first electroplating experiments were carried out, and two
weeks after a similar electroplate record was sealed in the Smithsonian box
with an Edison tin-foil phonograph.
I wonder if the electroplated disc of February 1880 is still unidentified. I
haven't read the article in "For the Record". Therefore, please cite the
relevant page(s) of his 1880 notes, because I thought that Tainter first
mentioned the zig-zag form on March 29, 1881 on page 9, Vol. 1 of his home
notes, and again on October 21, 1881 on page 51 in Vol. 3. > 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! [...]> Jim Cartwright
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