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80-Year-Old Edison Recording Resurrected

Posted by kdawson on from the wizard-of-menlo-park dept.

embolalia writes "An 80-year-old recording of a live radio broadcast featuring Thomas Edison has been uncovered and reconstituted. The recording was done on an obscure technology called a pallophotophone — Greek for 'shaking light sound' — that uses optical film to reproduce sound. The archivists who uncovered the canisters tucked away on a bottom shelf in a museum in Schenectady, New York (the city where Edison's General Electric was founded), did not have any machine to replay the films. Two GE engineers — working nights and weekends for two years — were able to construct a machine to replay the old tapes, recorded only two years before Edison's death." There's a video at the link, which may or may not contain some of the resurrected recording, but we couldn't get it to play from the Times Union site.

7 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Link to the video by endikos · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's the video of the people, machine, and recording

  2. We couldn't get it to play from the Times Union... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You need the Flash 10.2 beta which accelerates pallophotophone files.

  3. Neither Only nor Best by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is neither the only recording of the broadcast, nor the best. A recording of the broadcast made by Edison's own technicians on his then-state-of-the-art 30 RPM radio transcription system was restored by Professor Mike Biel and released by Mark 56 Records three decades ago.

  4. Old technology more lasting by Gazoogleheimer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In some ways, it is interesting to think that it is technically easier to recover data from this sort of recording (and likewise, other analog systems like magnetic reel-to-reel tape and records) long after the means to recover the data are lost compared to more modern, computerized formats. I sometimes worry about the 'lasting-ness' of all my JPEG photography compared to my film negatives through this same issue.

  5. Content still under copyright? by linebackn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1929? So the entirety of the content from those things would still be under copyright, right?

    Eh, torrent link plz.

  6. Zippity do dah gone forever! by erroneus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is during instances and moments like these that we should be reminded of exactly how bad it is to protect content and patent data processing methods. These are the surest ways for us to lose the historical data we are creating today. Already, losses of great works have been lost due to lack of republication because copyright has not expired before the last copies were lost forever. If it were not for a few brave individuals, Disney's "Song of the South" would be lost forever today as they will never EVER publish it again and it is not available for sale anywhere.

    And more and more, we are seeing technologies phasing out... floppy disks... anyone got an 8" floppy drive laying around? What about 5 1/4" No? I still have a few USB 3.5" floppy drives but that was only to make a floppy disk RAID for fun. We might find some paper tape somewhere in an archive out there in a dark closet, but will we find a reader for it?

    The push for "open formats" is precisely about better guaranteeing that data will be available in the future and so few people are willing to listen or understand. "DOC" is the standard right?

  7. Link to the audio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.gereports.com/edison-speaks-cracking-the-pallophotophone-code/