Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Offhand mentions
A couple of details from 1938, casually mentioned, clearly not viewed as significant at the time.
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1. From Gernsback's Radio Craft July '38, a detailed look at the mysterious '38 Olds dashboard. The futuristic dash disappeared next year (regressed to mean). Its shape finally came back in 1950, and the side-facing controls didn't return until 1990. The article doesn't mention GM or Olds, only the method of production.
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2. This seems to be the first mention of tape recording in English. It's in the British Wireless World, March '38, just a small section of a larger article about various new recording methods used in Germany.
The author thought mobile use was the only real advantage of tape. Open reels were never practical in cars. Cassettes were developed by Philips in 1950, but didn't reach cars until the late '70s, after a brief interregnum of 4-track and 8-track cartridges, first introduced by Madman Muntz.
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Musing: Tape NEVER had a real advantage. It was always less convenient, less 'calibratable', more messy and hackable**, and less accessible, than either disks or cylinders. Poulsen's original wire recorder used reels, but Poulsen also tried a magnetic disk at the same time. Cylinders are unquestionably best for finding the proper track. Dictaphones were already common in 1890 before the magnetic inventions even started, so there was no excuse for missing the concept. Dictaphones had precise control of tracks on both record and play, so they could have been used in a car without jumping grooves on a bump.
Cylinders are also uniform in resolution and speed from start to finish. A disk, whether grooved or magnetic, has more resolution in the outer part than the inner, so the recording and playing have to compensate in various ways. On a cylinder, you can calculate the location of a specific second with a simple division. Locating things on a disk is much more complex.
Combining these two items serendipitously: the cylindrical control on the Olds dash could have been a Dictaphone cylinder holder. Slip a cylinder on the dash, press the record pedal, and dictate.
Dictaphones didn't need electricity, so they could have been used in the earliest autos before electric starters and generators, and could have provided entertainment for passengers before broadcasting arrived in the '20s.
It's a safe bet that some execs had dictaphones in their limos, but I can find only one mention in a trade journal:
The limousine carries five passengers in the rear compartment, and is equipped with all the usual fittings of a car of this class and also has a dictaphone for communication with the driver.
This clearly wasn't an actual dictaphone but just a loosely described speaking tube.
** Hackable: Tape can be erased from a distance by a magnet. Grooved media have to be physically destroyed by a live spy.
Newest in automobile plastic moldings is the so-called "safety unit" here illustrated. The right-hand end of this molding incorporates radio controls as illustrated. To make the molded shell of this new control unit a "cannon" exerts 790, 000 lbs. pressure at 350 degrees.
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2. This seems to be the first mention of tape recording in English. It's in the British Wireless World, March '38, just a small section of a larger article about various new recording methods used in Germany.
The Magnetophone recorder recently introduced by the R.R.G. is shown below. It makes use of a non-inflammable film 6.5 mm. wide which is coated with a thin layer of powdered metal. The recorded film can be stored and transported, being unaffected by jolts in moving vehicles.
The author thought mobile use was the only real advantage of tape. Open reels were never practical in cars. Cassettes were developed by Philips in 1950, but didn't reach cars until the late '70s, after a brief interregnum of 4-track and 8-track cartridges, first introduced by Madman Muntz.
= = = = =
Musing: Tape NEVER had a real advantage. It was always less convenient, less 'calibratable', more messy and hackable**, and less accessible, than either disks or cylinders. Poulsen's original wire recorder used reels, but Poulsen also tried a magnetic disk at the same time. Cylinders are unquestionably best for finding the proper track. Dictaphones were already common in 1890 before the magnetic inventions even started, so there was no excuse for missing the concept. Dictaphones had precise control of tracks on both record and play, so they could have been used in a car without jumping grooves on a bump.
Cylinders are also uniform in resolution and speed from start to finish. A disk, whether grooved or magnetic, has more resolution in the outer part than the inner, so the recording and playing have to compensate in various ways. On a cylinder, you can calculate the location of a specific second with a simple division. Locating things on a disk is much more complex.
Combining these two items serendipitously: the cylindrical control on the Olds dash could have been a Dictaphone cylinder holder. Slip a cylinder on the dash, press the record pedal, and dictate.
Dictaphones didn't need electricity, so they could have been used in the earliest autos before electric starters and generators, and could have provided entertainment for passengers before broadcasting arrived in the '20s.
It's a safe bet that some execs had dictaphones in their limos, but I can find only one mention in a trade journal:
The limousine carries five passengers in the rear compartment, and is equipped with all the usual fittings of a car of this class and also has a dictaphone for communication with the driver.
This clearly wasn't an actual dictaphone but just a loosely described speaking tube.
** Hackable: Tape can be erased from a distance by a magnet. Grooved media have to be physically destroyed by a live spy.Labels: Bemusement
¶ 1:43 AM
