Tuesday, September 08, 2009
iTunes new? Nope
The 1942 private-eye movie "X Marks the Spot" centers on an interesting and forgotten coin-op technology, something like a friendly juke box. This 1950 episode of the fine radio show 'This is Your FBI' also features the same system, with an interesting prediction of its future progress.
The "Number Please" system had a central office equipped with a record library and turntables ... presumably a separate turntable for each remote jukebox ... and pleasant-voiced girls as the DJs. It must have been familiar to moviegoers, but I'd guess it was only installed in a few big cities. Can't find anything about it online.
Private subscription music is much older, dating almost to the first organized telephone service. In fact some prognosticators thought the telephone would be more useful for broadcasting than for conversation; the telegraph and postal system seemed perfectly adequate for sending information. Starting around 1890, many city phone exchanges offered a "music channel" charged to your regular phone bill. These disappeared before WW2 in America but continued into the '70s in parts of Europe. Now the very same service is coming around again via Kazaa! = = = = = Later: Here's a picture of a real 'juke system', also from 1942. The movie wasn't too far from the reality.
¶ 6:18 PM 
The "Number Please" system had a central office equipped with a record library and turntables ... presumably a separate turntable for each remote jukebox ... and pleasant-voiced girls as the DJs. It must have been familiar to moviegoers, but I'd guess it was only installed in a few big cities. Can't find anything about it online.
Private subscription music is much older, dating almost to the first organized telephone service. In fact some prognosticators thought the telephone would be more useful for broadcasting than for conversation; the telegraph and postal system seemed perfectly adequate for sending information. Starting around 1890, many city phone exchanges offered a "music channel" charged to your regular phone bill. These disappeared before WW2 in America but continued into the '70s in parts of Europe. Now the very same service is coming around again via Kazaa! = = = = = Later: Here's a picture of a real 'juke system', also from 1942. The movie wasn't too far from the reality.
¶ 6:18 PM
