AUTOMATIC SECRETARY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 13 June 1925, Page 3

AUTOMATIC SECRETARY

1 A MODERN DEVICE POR THE | BUSINESS WORLD | | A recently invented machine perj j forms in a way that is positively unj canny a variety of tasks ordinarily accomplished only by human hands and I brums. It will take dictation like a | . stenographer. It will serve as seere|lt lary of a, meeting or office conference. If I It will answer the telephone in the ab--5 j sence of Hie subscriber, report bis absence to the caller, and take a message that it will repeat to tlio sub- | scriber on his return. It will record j perfectly a- telephone conversation from i both ends, no matter how far separated, 3 it writes T. Stevens in Popular Science I j| Monthly. It can be. used as a dieto- | jl graph in criminal or other investigai Ij lions. It can be hooked up to a radio ; || receiver so that it will record automatic It rally slock .market quotations or similar [j, broadcast messages at the proper time. I j 1 It can bo put to any or all of these 1 L uses, or to any others that the ingenu- : ((■' iiy or necessity of the user may waist rant without change of mechanism, r. In appearance this amazing apparatus If l resembles somewhat an old-time phono[H graph, employing cylindrical records, or . flic ordinary diciating machine to be | St found in many offices. Like both of j H‘ these devices, the new machine records If conversations on a wax cylindrical rcII cord. Unlike them, however, the rcJ | cording is accomplished net- meclianical- !• ly. but electrically, the sound vibrations of the voice being transformed into elce- | t ideal cum ills in a sort of miniature f radio transmitter, containing a vacuum I tube and a complicated series of in- { ductances. These messages then are imi*., printed on the record, and are rep roll dured for the hearer by the usual Dr phonographic process. Through the U electrical system of recording an exceli It lent, quality of reproduction is attained, I Hie listener hearing the true inflection If ai>d 1 lines of the speaker's' voice.' Also •jl it permits the use of a supersensitivc l I microphone, wliieh enables the user to U give dictation in an ordinary eonversa- [ \j tioual tone ftom 20 feet or more away, ! anil also causes the machine, when it. {{ is used for tlmf, purpose, to record every ;| won! of a conversation in which several If persons are taking part, no diiatter in [j what parts of a room they are situated. j| By nicane of auxiliary "apparatus a {j maga/ine of records may be installed in I I; the macliine, so that when the end of ! U one ;s reached, the next automatically ji starts recording, thus permitting dicta- | tion lo be given or conversation of any L sort to be recorded indefinitely. Each j! record may be shaved about 80 times ti fietore it becomes too thin to be used h iurtlier. The device may he operated [ for any of its many uses by either j electric current or by a storage battery j or dry cells, like the radio set. I When the- device is employed as a. jl telephone operator, a message suitable ■ j for transmission to telephone callers ij during the absence, of the subscriber is j 1 imprinted on a small auxiliary record I at the left of the larger wax 'cylinder, j When a caller obtains the subscriber’s i number, in the absence of the latter, j this little record is set in motion by the I current operating the telephone' hell, j and the caller hears something to the j h'llpwing cited : —"This is the office of Smith and Co. There is no one here | at pre.-oDt, hut you may lesivc a. mesj! cagi, ir you ~: » U ; ,',gain at- 2.5(3 if N ycttJ pri h i Imwcdiatcly afta the deD river) <Ji this message, the ir»ac)«»rfls »s is read j? to Vtv (<rci anj n»i:ss?*ge t)ite eallet S| t'-ay ■t'.'-oi to g:\-e. ns a rvca-O-J| f > ol a telephone, conversation, the ma[s chine stalls working automatically the D instant the call is put through, and imII ])iints on the record every word by ji <Mther party._ Brokers and others to whmn repudiation of a telephone order b.v a inston.er might moan a large financial loss, would find permanent records ot their conversation of special value.