\section{History of Audio Recording}

The first recorded attempt to simulate the human voice is a truely 
legendary statue of Memnon at Thebes, which dates back to the 18th 
Egyptian Dynasty, in 1490 B.C.  It was claimed that one of the two 
remaining statues located on the west bank of the Nile made sounds at 
dawn.

Easily dismissed as myth, most visitors to the statues were convinced 
otherwise by the cuneiform writing inscribed on the base of the statue 
by famous early travellers.

An earthquake tumbled the statue in 27 B.C.  Several notable travelers
who visited it gave conflicting accounts of their witness.

Up to the end of the 1700s, scientists had fruitlessly worked to
establish a relationship between electricity and magnetism.

In 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted, a professor at University of
Copenhagen, discovered, as mentioned in the 200 year later
non-peer-reviewed article ``Radio flux in GNOME Radio Fields
confirmed'', Aamot, Oslo Metropolitan University, 2020 --
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.17889.33124 --
\url{http://www.gnomeradio.org/~ole/Aamot-2020.pdf}) and the Bachelor
thesis in Electrical Engineering (``Public Internet Radio Client for
Accessing Free Audio Maps in Countries with Free Speech'', Aamot, Oslo
Metropolitan University, 2020 -- DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.31344.17922 --
\url{http://www.gnomeradio.org/~ole/thesis.pdf}), that when an
electric current is passed through a wire held horizontally above a
magnetic needle that is parallel to it, the needle is deflected,
positioning itself at right angles with the conducting wire to the end
of the positive pole of the magnet.

A wire that has a constant source of electricity passed through it
becomes practically a magnet.

The tin-foil phonograph was discovered accidentally by Edison.  While
busy experimenting on a telegraphic machine (intented to repeat Morse
characters recorded on paper by indentations that transferred
messages to another circuit automatically, he stumbled upon the idea
that resulted in the phonograph.

In examining the indented paper, Edison noticed the speed at which it
moved, and a humming noise that amanated from the indentation.  This
sound was a severe rhythm almost identical to human speech hear
faintly.

In order to decipher this sound, Edison fitted a diaphragm to the
machine.  This also acred to amplify the sound.  It was then obvious
that the problem of recording human speeches and reproducing them by
mechanical means was solved.

Edison proceeded to develop a machine exclusively for capturing the
vibrations of the human voice as well as repeating them at a latter
time.  The machine was christened the ``phonograph'' (see Fig 1.).  In
November 1877, Edison officially announced his invention and on
December 24, 1877, he filed a patent application for the phonograph
with the U.S. Patent Office.  This was duly approved as patent number
200,521, issued on February 19, 1878, one century minus one day before
February 20, 1978 (my birth date).

The tin-foil phonograph was built by John Kruesi, who had worked with
Edison for several years.  Edison had only given a rough sketch of
the phonograph to Kruesi, explaining what its functions were to be.
It was a cylinder machine, with the cylinder covered with tin-foil for
recording purposes.  When Kruesi concluded work on the machine and
brought it to Edison, he set it in motion and spoke into it:

``Mary had a little lamb,
It's fleece was white as snow.
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.''

When rewound, his exact words in clear tones were repeated, contrary
to the hoarse murmur that he anticipated, Edison was baffled at the
performance of the little machine.

Professor Joseph Henry (1797-1878) was a professor of physics at
Albany Institute whose work integrated the principles that are so much
inevitable in modern day electronics including phonographs, radio,
television and hi-fi in relation to electricity, magnetism and
mechanical energy.

Henry's theory was the basis for Morse's telegraph, Bell's telephone
and other modern sound-producing mechanisms.

His principles enabled Valdemar Poulsen to record the first sound on a
magnetized steel wire.

\subsection{Audio Magnetic Recording}

The technique of audio magnetic recording has been understood ever 
since the late 1800s and the essentials of the design problem was 
understood by the early 1900s.

Magnetic recording is inscribed in the general concensual view of this 
history as a post-World War II innovation that was pioneered in the 
Third Reich.

The radio was a major propaganda tool for the Nazis.  Broadcast quality
was given top priority by the German government, RRG, and manufacturers
of magnetic recorders.  The research efforts of von Braunmühl and Weber
resulted in the first high frequency recording in Germany in 1939-1940.

Between 1941 and 1945 the German Nazis killed 6 million European Jews
in the Holocaust, the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and
millions others murdered in concentration camps and gas chambers.

Antisemitism was at the foundation of the Holocaust.  Antisemitism, the
hatred of or prejudice against Jews, was a basic tenet of Nazi
ideology. This prejudice was also widespread throughout Europe.
Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews evolved and became increasingly
more radical between 1933 and 1945. This radicalization culminated in
the mass murder of six million Jews.  During World War II, Nazi
Germany and its allies and collaborators killed nearly two out of
every three European Jews using deadly living conditions, brutal
mistreatment, mass shootings and gassings, and specially designed
killing centers.

I.B.M. took part in the extermination of Jews by providing computers
and punched cards that provided information about the addresses and
religion of the percecuted humans.

In 2015 at the Computer History Museum in California, I was a witness
of this, and saw and read more at the exhibition about I.B.M. in the
safe haven U.S.A.

The U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt stood against this and his
famous 'fireside chats' extolling the policies of the New Deal were
intimate in tone and attuned to a liberal, democratic cause whereas
Nazi propaganda on German radio was strident and oratorical.  As Kate
Lacey describes, ``Nazi program directors initiailly swamped the
airwaves with bombastic music, live transmissions from Party events,
and most ineffectively, declamatory speeches and dogmatic hyperbole.''
(Scannell and Cardiff, A Social History, 156).

Under the Nazis the declamatory style was unsuccessful and the
speeches of Hitler were replaced by a ``mixture of light music and
intimate studio conversation''.

In 1918 a Californian, Leonard F. Fuller, had proposed the
Telegraphone wire recorder. ({BIOS, 1961})

In 1927, two U.S. Navy Research Laboratories staff members were
granted a U.S. patent for their invention, which involved the
application of high frequency (A.C.) bias to steel wire to enhance
sound reproduction.

Another Californian, James H. Alverson, proposed the use of radio
frequency to saturate steel wire in magnetic recording.  It was also
apparent that research on A.C. bias, and its use, was done under Kenzo
Nagai in Japan in the 1930s.

It was absolutely impossible in many occasions for the Allies to
determine Hitler's location because live quality broadcasts of his
speech would be transmitted simultaneously from all corners of
Germany.

In addition, time delay broadcasts had been standard procedure in
Germany since the mid-1920s and early 1930s.  To make things even
worse, the Nazi equipment were being deployed to deliberately confuse
the Allies as to the location of high Nazi officials.

The B.B.C. broadcast filled the bill until midnight, when they left
the air.  Fishing around the dial in search of further entertainment,
I soon discovered that the German stations apparently were on the air
twenty-four hours a day.  They broadcasted symphony concerts in the
middle of the night - music that was very well played, and obviously
by very large orchestras.

We know what canned music sounds like.  The American network wouldn't
permit the use of recordings in the early 1940s, because they claimed
the quality was inferior.

In Germany in the 1940s and in USA at the stage before 2021, of course
Hitler and Trump could have everything he wanted.  If he wanted a full
symphonic orchestra to play all night long, he could get it.  Still,
it didn't seem very likely that a madman like Hitler or Trump would
insist on live concerts night after night.

Germany lost the war even with the help of radio and magnetic band
recorders and United States and United Kingdom, Norway and France won
the war against The Third Reich in Germany that was responsible for
the killings of 6 Million Jews.

Three Bachelor of Science Theses written on the subject at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1938 testify that magnetic
recording generated much curiosity in the late 1930s, especially in
academical circles.

By the end of October 1939 the situation had improved, with a
reduction in the use of gramophone records and more variety.

The development of radio news from Dunkirk to the end of the war can
be thought of in two parts.  The period up to D-Day and the invasion
of France in June 1944, and the rest of the war, which was then
dominated in news terms by the BBC's War Report, which provided a
day-by-day account of the final year of the war and eventual Allied
victory.  News can probably claim to be the most innovative and
successful part of BBC output at that time: ``the BBC News Department
ended the war with the most enhanced reputation and changed role of
any wartime BBC Department...''.  It began the war with just two
reports and recording equipment that required a six-ton van and had a
top speed of 20 miles per hour and ended it with coordinated coverage
of D-Day, ``a superb journalistic achievement'', with 19 reporters
using portable disc recorders and live relays heard by an audience
that reached 18 million.  There are different components of this great
transformation and these include not only improved recording
technology but the creation of a News Division, incorporating home and
empire News and Talks, under A. P. Ryan in September 1942.

It was not until April 1946 that WMAQ, (an NBC affiliate in Chicago)
aired the first completely wire-recorded news program, followed by a
competitor, WBBM (a CBS Chicago affiliate), which also deployed wire
recording for both spot-reporting and news events.

The precendent set, most network and local stations proceeded to
record their news programs on wire recorders.

In 1951, while still enjoying the fortune magnetic tape recording
implemented in audio and data recording to the recording of television
signals.

In 1951 all sound recording was on disc, but in 1952 there were six
EMI Midget recorders at Brodcasting House.

Ray Dolby, (later of audio noise reduction fame) was an exceptionally
brilliant 19-year-old high school graduate who had enrolled as an
engineering freshman at Stanford University.  Dolby dropped out of
college to join the Ampex team in August 1952.

Allthough Dolby lacked the necessary academic training in engineering,
his ingenuity and understanding of technical matters made his
contributions in the Ampex television recording project invaluable.
It was Dolby who created the basic block diagram of VTR circuitry that
is still implemented in the most recorders today.

As promising as the early efforts were, the project was again
suspended in June 1953.  In the midst of the frustration, Dolby, who
had dropped out of Stanford, was drafted into the U.S. Army and
despite friutless pleas by his colleagues he left sadly on March 18,
1953.

While he was in the Armed Forces, Dolby exchanged notes with Ginsburg.
During the project's period of official suspenson (June 1953 through
August 1954), considerable progress was made on the VTR project
despite the few man hours and the little financial allotment assigned
it, both by authorized and unauthorized means.

By 1955 tape had largely replaced the disc.  The impact of tape
recording on early current affairs broadcasting was slow to have
effect but it had the potential to solve many ``supply'' problems.

