TALKING MACHINE 



5690 



TALKING MACHINE 



Sarah Bernhardt rejoiced when she was asked 

 to present a play for the moving pictures, for, 

 she said, "Now I shall live a thousand years." 

 Her voice will as long delight her countrymen 

 and lovers of her supreme art everywhere, for 

 she has spoken her "lines" into the "records." 



Furthermore, the talking machine is going to 

 preserve spoken languages that are dying out, 

 and also the present-day speech and folklore of 

 American Indians. Students of foreign lan- 

 guages are aided in the mastery of pronuncia- 

 tion by "records" made for the purpose. The 

 talking machine is rapidly entering the busi- 

 ness world ; the business man dictates his let- 

 ters into the machine, and later the typist 

 listens and writes. In the home it will be pos- 

 sible to preserve the voices of father, mother, 

 brother and sister against the day when they 

 will be absent forever. 



Thomas A. Edison was the pioneer in the 

 development of a practical talking machine, 

 though the basic idea did not originate with him. 

 In 1877 he broucht out the first phonograph, 

 which, as now perfected, operates on the follow- 



The original Edison machine was provided 

 with a cylinder covered with tin foil; the wax 

 cylinder was the invention of Chichester A. 

 Bell and Charles S. Tainter, who brought out 

 the so-called graphophone in 1885. The grapho- 



THE FIRST TALKING MACHINE 

 The original Edison machine, invented in 1877. 



ing plan: Impressions of the sounds to be re- 

 corded are made on a wax-covered cylinder 

 which revolves against a sharp needle point, or 

 stylus, attached to a thin metallic diaphragm. 

 The diaphragm, which is mounted on a car- 

 riage, is set in motion by the impulses of the 

 voice or mechanism producing the sounds, and 

 as it vibrates the stylus cuts into the wax small 

 indentations or grooves, which travel in a spiral 

 around the entire length of the cylinder. The 

 reproduction, of the sounds is accomplished 

 through the medium of another diaphragm 

 carrying a needle which follows the grooves 

 already made in the wax. In the later type of 

 talking machine the sounds were reenforced by 

 means of a trumpet-shaped horn, and at a still 

 later date the horn was abandoned. 



U 



THE RECORD OF A TENOR VOICE 

 Part of a record, as seen through a powerful 

 microscope. The differences in the curves show 

 the differing indentations made in singing the 

 vowel sounds. In reproducing these sounds the 

 needle passes over these indentations and vibrates 

 exactly as did the stylus which made the curves. 



phone, in brief, was the first phonograph in 

 which a wax cylinder was used. In 1887 ap- 

 peared the gramophone, the invention of Emile 

 Berliner. This instrument made use of a disk 

 instead of a cylinder, while the stylus cut on 

 the disk a zigzag groove of the same depth 

 throughout instead of one of varying depth. 

 The Victor Talking Machine, the Disk Grapho- 

 phone and the Columbia Phonograph are all 

 patented forms of the original Berliner instru- 

 ment. Though the first Edison machines were 

 provided only with cylinder records, both cylin- 

 der and disk models are now manufactured by 

 the Edison Company, and the old distinction 

 between phonograph and gramophone has been 

 lost. In fact, the tendency now is to designate 

 a talking machine, whether of the cylinder or 

 disk type, by its special trade name. 



The improvements adopted by the various 

 manufacturers of these instruments are numer- 

 ous and ingenious. The more expensive ma- 

 chines are handsome pieces of furniture, made 

 of expensive woods and sometimes adorned 

 with elaborate carving or painted designs. The 

 old-fashioned horn for reenforcing the sound is 

 replaced by a chamber under the instrument, in 

 which there is a sounding board resembling that 

 of the piano. Electric motors are a modern 

 improvement over the hand-turned crank, and 

 there are other devices for regulating the vol- 

 ume and tempo of the sound. Indestructible 

 diamond needles are used on many machines, 

 and are considered an improvement over the 

 steel or wooden needle that has to be changed 

 frequently. The manufacture and duplication 



