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PHONAUTOGRAPH


Patented in 1857 by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville

 "It transcribed sound waves as undulations or other deviations in a line traced on smoke-blackened paper or glass. Intended solely as a laboratory instrument for the study of acoustics, it could be used to visually study and measure the amplitude envelopes and waveforms of speech and other sounds, or to determine the frequency of a given musical pitch" (Wikipoedia)

The recordings from this device were not translated into sound until 2008 when image to sound conversion software became available.


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