A D V E N T U R E S   in   C Y B E R S O U N D

1887: French inventor Charles Cros describes the essential ideas behind a disc-based recording and playback system, later developed by Emile Berliner as the gramophone. Cros also develops the ideas behind the duplicating system that is still used in the manufacture of records today. He is unable to construct his own machines because of the cost.

Source: http://www.cequel.co.uk/acclarke/shc.html

Charles Émile-Hortensius Cros (b. Oct. 1, 1842, Fabrezan, Fr. d. Aug. 10, 1888, Paris), French inventor and poet whose work in several fields foreshadowed or paralleled important developments.

In 1869 Cros published a theory of three-colour photography similar to the more influential ideas advanced by Louis Ducos du Hauron in the same year. In his book Études sur les moyens de communication avec les planètes (1869; "Studies on the Means of Communication with the Planets"), he projected a huge concave mirror with focal length equal to the distance of Mars or Venus from the Earth. Sunlight concentrated by the mirror would fuse the planetary surface in geometric patterns that would presumably be intelligible to higher forms of life anywhere in the universe.

Cros invented a phonograph (paléophone) in 1877, the year in which Thomas A. Edison of the United States made his first recording.

Cros's most important poetical work, Le Coffret de santal (1873; "The Sandalwood Chest"), in the Symbolist vein, was praised by Paul Verlaine and may have influenced Arthur Rimbaud as well as 20th-century French Symbolists. An anthology of his Poèmes et proses, edited by Henri Parisot, appeared in 1944.

Source: Britannica Online

Charles Cros , savant et poète français, ami de Nadar, imagine en 1877 un système capable d'enregistrer le son sur un disque ou un cylindre. Quelques mois après lui, l'américain Thomas Alva Edison fait la même invention, la réalise et la fait breveter en 1878.

Son système, appelé phonographe , fonctionne avec un cylindre de cire gravé et manipulé à la main. Par la suite, Edison motorise la rotation du cylindre pour obtenir une vitesse régulière et trouve un moyen de dupliquer le cylindre en produisant un moule.

En 1888, Émile Berliner fabrique le gramophone . Ce système utilise un disque plat sur lequel le son est gravé en une spirale. Si le son est de moins bonne qualité qu'avec le phonographe, le disque est plus facilement reproductible. Berliner travaille alors à améliorer la qualité de ses enregistrements, au point que son gramophone vient concurrencer puis évincer le système d'Edison.

Source: http://www.calvacom.fr/calvaweb/malexism/medias/enregistrementsonore1.html

Back to the Top | Scientists and Engineers A - F | Quit | eMail: Dr Russell Naughton