Thank you Thomas Edison!

On this day in 1877, Thomas Edison cuts the first "record" when he records the words, "Mary had a
little lamb" onto his phonograph in Menlo Park, New Jersey...

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The phonograph was developed as a result of Thomas Edison's work on two other inventions, the telegraph and the telephone. Edison had been working on a machine that would transcribe telegraphic messages through indentations on paper tape, which could later be sent over the telegraph repeatedly. This development led Edison to speculate that a telephone message could also be recorded in a similar fashion. He experimented with a diaphragm which had an embossing point and was held against rapidly-moving paraffin paper. The speaking vibrations made indentations in the paper. Edison later changed the paper to a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. The machine had two diaphragm-and-needle units, one for recording, and one for playback. When one would speak into a mouthpiece, the sound vibrations would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle in a vertical (or hill and dale) groove pattern. Edison gave a sketch of the machine to his mechanic, John Kreusi, to build, which Kreusi supposedly did within 30 hours. Edison immediately tested the machine by speaking the nursery rhyme into the mouthpiece, "Mary had a little lamb." To his amazement, the machine played his words back to him.

The Edison Phonograph Company was later formed to market Edison's machine. He introduced the Improved Phonograph by May of 1888, shortly followed by the Perfected Phonograph. The first wax cylinders Edison used were white and made of ceresin, beeswax, and stearic wax.


A New Jersey-ite to be proud of!!!

 

I remember visiting the Edison museum in Florida in the mid 70's and looking at the display of his original wax cylinders and thinking to myself, this is where it really all began.

Pretty cool when you think about it.

 

bahhh... Tesla is the man...

hehehehe

 

wow, that is cool!

now, I wish I had the key's to Tesla's brain, nevermind his museum...

 

A lot of the old short Edison films and Diamond Discs still provide an interesting into America at the turn of the century. Edison was fiesty, wasn't he? I guess you'd have to be to perfect the light bulb and the phonograph.

www.tinfoil.com has the earliest known playable recording - The "talking clock" by Lambert, a recording on lead! 1878!

http://www.tinfoil.com/cm-0101.htm

 

That's funny- kidding aside, I always think of Tesla when Edison is mentioned.. they sort of go together in my mind. Between the two they're very much responsible for us having stuff to discuss in here today .

 

I wish Edison invented the SACD. It would have saved us all the headache inbetween.

 

Missed this thread the first time, but this link may be of interest:

http://www.greenfieldvillage.org/village/edisonatwork.asp

 

In 1862 Edison saved, from otherwise certain death in a train accident, the young son of J. U. Mackenzie, station agent at Mount Clemens, Mich. In gratitude, the child's father taught him telegraphy. Edison was 15 years old.

http://www.thomasedison.com/Inventions.htm

 

Tesla, the ‘mad’ scientist. Its likely he was way more important to mankind then anyone else.

http://www.teslasociety.com/

 

Tesla, was a true genius. His dream, tho, of power being transmitted without wires, never became a reality. The truth is that it was too dangerous to human and animal life to do it that way.

 

oh man, thank you for agreeing with me on that!!! any chance I have, I always attempt to educate people about the importance of Tesla... sadly, most people have no idea of his absolute importance to mankind.