. (Excerpts taken from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia)
The First Phonograph
Thomas Alva Edison announced his invention of the first phonograph, a device for recording and replaying sound, on November 21, 1877 and he demonstrated the device for the first time on November 29 (it was patented on February 19, 1878 as US Patent 200,521).
Edison's early phonographs recorded onto a tinfoil sheet phonograph cylinder using an up-down (vertical) motion of the stylus. The tinfoil sheet was wrapped around a grooved cylinder, and the sound was recorded as indentations into the foil. Edison's early patents show that he also considered the idea that sound could be recorded as a spiral onto a disc, but Edison concentrated his efforts on cylinders, since the groove on the outside of a rotating cylinder provides a constant velocity to the stylus in the groove, which Edison considered more "scientifically correct".
Emile Berliner patented his Gramophone in 1887. The Gramophone involved a system of recording using a lateral (back and forth) movement of the stylus as it traced a spiral onto a zinc disc coated with a compound of beeswax in a solution of benzine. The zinc disc was immersed in a bath of chromic acid; this etched the groove into the disc where the stylus had removed the coating, after which the recording could be played.
From the mid-1890s until the early 1920s both phonograph cylinder and disc recordings and machines to play them on were widely mass marketed and sold. The disc system gradually became more popular due to its cheaper price and better marketing by disc record companies. Edison ceased cylinder manufacture in the fall of 1929, and the history of disc and cylinder rivalry was concluded.
Berliner's lateral disc record was the ancestor of the 78 rpm, 45 rpm, 33? rpm, and all other analog disc records popular for use in sound recording through the 20th century. The turntable remained a common element of home audio systems well after the introduction of other media such as audio tape and even the early years of the compact disc. They were common in home audio systems into the early 1990s. By the turn of the 21st century, the turntable had become a niche product. Nevertheless, turntables and records continue to be manufactured and sold as of 2006, albeit in very small quantities when compared to the disc phonograph's heyday.
