A recording of Thomas Edison from 1929 is recovered!

[thewayne]

It was a radio broadcast commemorating the "Edison Light's Golden Jubilee" and an unlabeled recording was discovered in the vaults of a museum. The recording was made on a pallophotophone, of which no examples still exist. It used sprocketless 35mm film to record 8-10 audio tracks. It was shown to a retired GE engineer who holds something like 16 patents, he recognized a possibility for rebuilding a pallophotophone, got together with another engineering bud, and they built a new device and were able to play the audio film and record it!

The museum where it was discovered, the Schenectady Museum & Suits-Bueche Planetarium, has the world's largest collection of pre-1931 radio broadcasts.

Edison was 88, he died two years after this recording was made.

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=942480

This video shows the reinvented machine in action: http://www.timesunion.com/multimedia/video/TUvideo.asp?title=Preserving+history&vidid=96943677001&bccapt=Freeing+Thomas+Edison%27s+voice.+%28Paul+Grondahl+%2F+Times+Union%29

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

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/06/18/162204/80-Year-Old-Edison-Recording-Resurrected