Leslie J. Newville

“ The work of the Volta associates laid the foundation for the successful use of the dictating machine in business, for their wax recording process was practical and their machines sturdy. But it was to take several more years and the renewed work of Edison and further developments by Berliner and many others, before the talking machine industry really got under way and became a major factor in home entertainment. ”

“ Hubbard was then president of the Edison Speaking Phonograph Co., and his organization, which had purchased the Edison patent, was having trouble with its finances because people did not like to buy a machine which seldom worked well and proved difficult for an unskilled person to operate. ”

“ But material collected through the years by the U. S. National Museum of the Smithsonian Institution now makes clear how Bell and two associates took Edison's tinfoil machine and made it reproduce sound from wax instead of tinfoil. They began their work in Washington, D. C., in 1879, and continued until granted basic patents in 1886 for recording in wax.
Preserved at the Smithsonian are some 20 pieces of experimental apparatus, including a number of complete machines. Their first experimental machine was sealed in a box and deposited in the Smithsonian archives in 1881. ”

“ While some are scratched and cracked, others are still in good condition.
By 1881 the Volta associates had succeeded in improving an Edison tinfoil machine to some extent. Wax was put in the grooves of the heavy iron cylinder, and no tinfoil was used. Rather than apply for a patent at that time, however, they deposited the machine in a sealed box at the Smithsonian, and specified that it was not to be opened without the consent of two of the three men. ”

“ The Phonograph cylinder E, was rotated while words and sounds were shouted to the support to which the water jet was attached, and a record that was quite visible to the unaided eye was the result.
The tape recorder, an unusual instrument which recorded mechanically on a 3⁄16-inch strip of wax-covered paper, is one of the machines described and illustrated in U. S. patent 341214, dated May 4, 1886 (see fig. 4) . ”

“ The machine of sturdy wood and metal construction, is hand powered by means of a knob fastened to the fly wheel. From the fly-wheel shaft power is transferred by a small friction wheel to a vertical shaft. At the bottom of this shaft a V-pulley transfers motion by belts to corresponding V-pulleys beneath the horizontal reels.
The wax strip passes from one 8-inch reel around the periphery of a pulley (with guide flanges) mounted above the V-pulleys on the main vertical shaft, where it comes in contact with the recording or reproducing stylus. ”

“ An interesting exception has a horizontal 7-inch turntable (see figs. 7 and 8) . This machine, although made in 1886, is a duplicate of one made earlier but taken to Europe by Chichester Bell. Tainter was granted U. S. patent 385886 for it on July 10, 1888.
The playing arm is rigid, except for a pivoted vertical motion of 90 degrees to allow removal of the record or a return to starting position. While recording or playing, the record not only rotated, but moved laterally under the stylus, which thus described a spiral, recording 150 grooves to the inch. ”

“ In conducting our work we had first to design an experimental apparatus, then hunt about, often in Philadelphia and New York, for the materials with which to construct it, which were usually hard to find, and finally build the models we needed, ourselves. ”

“ The sound vibrations had been indented in the wax which had been applied to the Edison phonograph. The following is the text of the recording: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. I am a graphophone and my mother was a phonograph." Remarked Mrs. Gilbert Grosvenor, [8] Bell's daughter, [Pg 74] when the box was opened in 1937, "That is just the sort of thing father would have said. He was always quoting from the classics."
Figure 4.—Patent Drawings from U. S. patent 341214, granted May 4, 1886, to Chichester Bell and C. S. Tainter. ”