Wire Recording
Revision as of 21:33, 6 October 2008 by Kgotkin (Talk | contribs) (→‎Dictation)
2.1 Telegraphone
Although the wire recording technology is often cited synonymously with the telegraphone, it is important to note that the telegraphone is only one of the ways that the technology was harnessed, albeit the most well-known one. One of the greatest technological merits of wire recording in general was its broad applications. While almost all of the technology's uses never truly took root, the storage of audio data nevertheless ranged from the personal to the professional.
Telegraphone
As noted earlier, the advent of the wire recording technology was a means of profit; wire recording was initially thought to be the way to record telephone messages when a call was not answered (Clark). The machine that was able to accomplish this was called the telegraphone. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the telegraphone is "an electromagnetic phonograph capable of registering human speech by the alternating magnetization of a wire." At its most efficient stage, it "recorded continuously for 30 minutes on a length of steel piano-wire moving at a speed of 84 inches (213 cm) per second" ("Poulsen, Valdemar").
Dictation was the most popular use for wire recording and it accounts for much of recorded data that still exists today (Moscoso Interview). The ability to erase and re-record was what made wire recording so convenient for dictation. There were many machines made specifically for dictation, but most of them used metal in the form of tape or discs instead of wire. By the time dictation machines were being designed and built with features like instant playback and foot pedal controls, companies had already realized the advantages of using tape and discs over wire recording, since they are smaller and more easily managed (Camras 430-431). But nonetheless, companies did use wire for recording their meetings and often secretaries would simply insert the spools of wire into a playback device to being transcribing the spoken word into written word.
Camras, Marvin. Magnetic Recording Handbook. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1988.
Clark, Mark and Henry Nielsen. "Crossed wires and missing connections: Valdemar Poulsen, The American Telegraphone Company, and the failure to commercialize magnetic recording." Business History Review 69 (1995): 1-41.
"Poulsen, Valdemar." The Encyclopedia Britannica. Online Edition. 2008