[Coco] Importing CCRs

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 30 March 2007, Dan Olson wrote:
>> Yes, in the 40's.  It died a deserving death with the introduction of
>> tape.  Then when tape went plastic, we used the paper version for a
>> funeral pyre.
>
>Oh, I thought the question was asking if wire was ever used as a
> computer storage media.  Wire recorders for audio did exist.  Also,
> don't forget that record cutters weren't that uncommon for home use, I
> have a Packard Bell Phon-O-Cord sitting right here next to me :)  Sure,
> they were never as nice as tape, but it was *much* easier to find a
> machine to play back your recording.
>
I saw one of those once, but never heard a record it could cut.  The 
recommended cutter stylus was by about 1956 when I saw it, made out of 
pure unobtainium.  Woody, the owner of the shop I was working in at the 
time, tried to use one of the styli from his fairchild cutter, complete 
with the heater, and just about the time it was warm enough to start 
throwing a decently smooth chip string, it balled up around the stylus 
and caught the acetate blank on fire.  I think the acetate disks the PB 
used must have been quite a bit 'greener' than the blank disks we were 
using.  The guy that owned it came and took it home as soon as we got the 
fire damages cleaned up.  It wasn't the first time for that rig so he 
wasn't upset, or for Woodies custom cutter service's lathe. 

Woody had enough of the fires and finally gave up, running it cold, which 
raised the background hiss level quite a bit, but every cut was sellable.  
And that wa$ the point.  The lathe had a 16" Fairchild 'BattleShip" 
table, and a variable pitch drive on the lead screw, with the whole thing 
sitting in the top of a 3 foot square box 44" tall full of sand, about 2 
ton we think.  Rumble was NOT a problem.  Using the variable pitch drive, 
we could put over 10 minutes on a 12" platter at 78 rpm.

> 	Dan
>
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-- 
Cheers, Gene
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