apr 30, 1877 - Sound storage

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Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877.  Edison used a vibrating stylus connected to a sound collecting horn to record sound vibrations as a vertical pattern of waves on the surface of a rotating tinfoil cylinder. The tinfoil was soon replaced by wax, and the cylinders, which were hard to produce economically, evolved into the familiar, and less expensive, phonograph disks (1877), much to Edison's discontent. Disk recordings use a horizontal stylus motion, rather than the vertical motion employed by Edison.

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