Recording the Reich! Magnetophon technology!

[imported_the_librarian]

Hi all,

I'm back! Life is crazy sometimes! Anyway, I was doing some research for my new blog today and stumbled across the information on the German magnetophon. Evidently some of these were captured towards the end of the second world war by John Mullins (Ampex), who went in with Crosby for the transcription option via tape.

Here's a quote:

"...The officer encouraged Mullin to check out the machine. It was an intriguing idea. On the way back from the mission, Mullin encountered that fork in the road. Right led to Paris and his unit. Left to what was likely a wild goose chase. Mullin went left. It was “the greatest decision of my life,” he later wrote...."
(source: http://www.scu.edu/scm/summer2006/sound.cfm)

Here's a wikipedia link in case you are interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetophon

I apologize if this is a dupe, but it seemed a neat subject!

 

[Twitch]

Pretty interesting. Never knew of those connections.

 

[imported_the_librarian]

It's really amazing, I mean, we hear about the rocket technology and the big stuff, but the small stuff seems to slip through the cracks.

Hmmm...so is there a big Gov't warehouse somewhere full of stuff?

I guess I've been watching too much Indy! lol lol

 

[LizzieMaine]

The British also had magnetic recording technology during the thirties -- the BBC was using a device called the Blattnerphone to record programming for later broadcast. This machine used three-foot-diameter spools of solid steel tape as the recording medium, and because the system didn't use bias, the tape had to move at extremely high speed in order to get decent fidelity. At such speeds, a break in the tape could be lethal to bystanders, so the system was never practical for anything but professional use. A few Blattnerphones also made their way to Canada and Australia -- the CBC still has a few spools of Blattnertape in their archives, but no machine on which to play them.