PHONOGRAMS.

Press, Volume XLV, Issue 6964, 18 January 1888, Page 6

PHONOGRAMS.

It is stated by New York correspondents of the daily papers that Mr Edison has succeeded in making his phonograph a "practicable and commercial apparatus." Phonograms will be sold in the shape of small cylinders, in diameter, and from lin to -__n in length. One-inch phonograms will contain 200 words, sufficient for an ordinary business letter, and will cost fifteen cents a dozen. Full-size phonograms, 4in in length, will contain 800 to 1000 words, according to the rate of speed of the speaker, and will cost about 36 cents a dozen. There is no manipulation of apparatus necessary. It will occupy about the room necessary for a type-writer, the cells going in a closet or under a table. The motor will be boxed over, and nothing btft a revolving cylinder and mouthpiece will be in view. One touch of a little switch sets the machine in motion. Then the mouthpiece is adjusted to the cylinder, and talking may begin. The same process is to be gone through when the machine is to be read. It will be seen that the cost of phonograms is a great deal more than that of letter-paper; but provision is made for the use of the same phonogram twelve times if the messages it contains are not worth keeping. A little knife is attached to the machine, which takes a shaving, off the surface of the phonogram the seventhousandth part of an inch thick, and gives a fresh surface. This process may be repeated twelve times. Boxes for sending phonograms by post will be ready, with instruments, and will resembie the old-fashioned wood-turned pill-boxes. It would appear, from the mention of "cells," that the phonograph is to be driven by an electro-motor. !