1880-1890

Birth of the Gramophone

1881  Charles Tainter at the Volta Lab makes the first lateral-cut records, but without any apparatus to play them back.

1885   An improved rival phonograph is invented by Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter at the Volta laboratories they call the machine the "Graphophone" and utilise a wax coated cylinder incised with vertical-cut grooves.

1887   Edison updates the phonograph by using a solid wax cylinder and a battery-driven motor as opposed the original hand crank giving a constant pitch.

1888   Emile Berliner a German immigrant to the States invents the gramophone which used a 7 inch disc which was manually turned at around 30 rpm and had about a 2 minute record capability. The discs are made by a process that involves acid engraving onto a zinc master, the Groove is a laterally cut spiral on one side only. The advantage that the disc has over the cylinder is that it is possible to mass-produce a hard rubber record from the original press.

1889   The Columbia Phonograph Co. is set up as one of the thirty three franchises to lease graphophones to businesses. With little success they decide to record music and lease them to fairgrounds, where they became immensely popular as the first nickel juke boxes.

Next: 1890 to 1899.
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