Re: Cocoanut Grove

[Garrett Wollman <wollman@lcs.mit.edu>]

<<On Mon, 24 Feb 2003 17:48:25 +0000, dan.strassberg@att.net said:

> I'd be suspicious of any recording offered. Tape and even wire recorders did 
> not yet exist at the time.

Actually, they did.  Both metal-tape and wire recording were
demonstrated in Denmark around 1900.  Flexible oxide-coated plastic
tape was invented in Nazi Germany by BASF (then part of industrial
combine I.G. Farben), and a recorder to make use of it was
manufactured by AEG.  Hitler used audio tape to distribute his
propaganda speeches to radio stations, and the technology first became
known in the West during the liberation of Europe.  This technology
was independently reinvented a third time by the Brush company during
the War, but because of the suppressed market for consumer goods,
Brush's recorder was not available until 1945.  Meanwhile,
American-made wire recorders were supplied to the Navy for taking
dictation in places where vibration made traditional phonograph
recorders unreliable.

Source: <http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~dmorton/wire_recorders.htm>

-GAWollman