[Coco] Importing CCRs

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 26 March 2007, Robert Gault wrote:
>Mark McDougall wrote:
>> Robert Gault wrote:
>>>There must be some tape recorders sold in Australia that would be
>>>suitable.
>>
>> What's a tape recorder? Can I play MP3s on it? ;)
>>
I think he's trying to be a youngster who doesn't know any better. :-)

>> Regards,
>> mark
>
>Uh, well let's see. I think it uses a long strip of thin brown plastic
>with powdered earth glued on it.


Actually the first version of that used a paper tape with the rust/rouge 
coating on (supposedly) one side.  But it had a tendency to flake off, or 
stick to the other side it was wound against, so the plastic was a 
definite improvement.  Also, they hadn't discovered AC bias for the 
recording method yet, so the performance wasn't any better than a 1920's 
gramophone for noise & the DC bias made the distortion something you 
measured in 10's of percent.  In about ten years time (1946-1957) they 
went from a 20db s+sn to nearly 65db with the early Berlant-Concertone 
machines that could run in stereo at a transport speed of 30 ips.  Those 
had to be seen running before you realized you were listening to a 
recording instead of the real thing.

>On the other hand I seem to remember a 
>machine that used a long long piece of silvery wire that was wound on a
>spool. Well part the time it was wound on a spool but mostly it was
>twisted up in a big knot like a tangled up fishing line.

Yeah, I tried to untangle a few of those messes, but once that steel wire 
was the least bit kinked, forget it.  FWIW, Weber was still selling wire 
recorders circa 1953 or so, having failed to read the handwriting on the 
wall.

>Then there was 
>tin foil or was that a plastic cylinder ....

ISTR that was either a hard wax or a form of bakelight that was cooked to 
make it hard after the recording had been cut.  They had yet to invent 
the word for plastic then.  A neighbor of mine back in the range of 1940 
actually had a recorder and some blank cylinders but they'd warped and no 
longer fit the driving drum by then.  They faintly resembled beeswax to 
this then little boy of 6.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
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