I'm just trying to get an "E-mail" address for Ray Wile so I can scan the relevant "For the Record" pages for him to obtain his thoughts on the matter. I haven't read all Mr. Wile has written so he may have already dealt with this. I'm not trying to stir up a controversy for the sake of controversy. Naturally, I haven't seen every published source of sound recording history. Those I have seen all credit Berliner with originating lateral-cut wax disc recording, not Tainter. Tainter, along with Chichester Bell, is credited with the vertical-cut engraving of sound vibrations into wax & floating reproducer. This is why I stated that Tainter's lateral-cut work has been ignored. If Berliner's work was anticipated by Tainter's then Tainter deserves the credit, not Berliner. If the Tainter 1881 Home Notes turn out to be a hoax then this is interesting, too. I would like to like to know what Mr. Wile has to say. Please send his "E-mail" address. Thanks! (I attempted to send scans of the relevant "For the Record Pages" to "Phono-L" but they were evidently too large to post.)
Jim Cartwright Immortal Performances, Inc. jim...@earthlink.net > [Original Message] > From: S. Puille <berli...@msn.com> > To: <phono-l@oldcrank.org> > Date: 12-Sep-2010 6:29:28 PM > Subject: Re: [Phono-L] Contact Information needed > > > 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 > > _______________________________________________ > Phono-L mailing list > http://phono-l.oldcrank.org _______________________________________________ Phono-L mailing list http://phono-l.oldcrank.org
