The Edison "Phonograph" and the Tainter "Graphophone" are rival machines by which the sounds of human voice can be recorded and reproduced. There can be no question as to the great scientific interest of the invention, whether the priority of success be accorded to Mr Tainter or to Mr Edison.
That an instrument should be devised capable of reproducing the exact words and tones used by a speaker even after many days, or it may be when the human voice that originated them is silent in death, is sufficiently marvellous for a fairy tale. If the telephone may be said to aim at the destruction of distance, the graphophone in like manner may be said to neutralise the destructive effect of time. There is nothing more evanescent than the spoken word, but the graphophone imprisons the fleeting sound, and reproduces it at will with all the fidelity of a constant echo.
There is nothing marvellous in the methods by which this seeming miracle is accomplished, and it shares the quality of simplicity with many other great inventions. After paying our tribute to the scientific merit of the graphophone, there remains the further question as to its practical uses. The account we print elsewhere of the trial of the instrument yesterday at the Manchester Telephonic Exchange will show the limitations of the graphophone. It can reproduce only that which is directly addressed to it. It is a faithful dictatee, and will take a note of a speech or song when breathed into its receptive mechanism. Beyond this it does not go. It would be of no use in reporting a public address by Mr Gladstone or a solo given on the stage by Mr Sims Reeves.
The inventor, however, claims for it considerable usefulness in office work. The business man who employs it speaks into the tube the message he has to send his correspondent, and as rapidly as he can utter his words they are impressed on the waxen tablet of the recording cylinder. The tablet can then be sent bodily by post, and when placed in the recipient's graphophone will deliver the message with which it has been charged. More commonly, however, the message is transcribed for post by a typewriter. In this case the graphophone is alternately dictatee and dictater. To what extent this is an improvement upon dictation to a typewriter or stenographer experience alone can decide.
At present it would seem that the uses of the graphophone in business life were but limited, but the inventor states that it is used not only in the Congress of the United States for reporting and correspondence, but also that it is employed largely by American stenographers and lawyers. As we had occasion to remark of the phonograph, doubtless in time many practical uses will be found for the graphophone; but at present it is clear that it will not disestablish either the stenographer or the typewriter, or even the ordinary long-hand correspondent.
· This article is drawn from the archive at the Newsroom