THOMAS EDISON
Thomas Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed “The Wizard of Menlo Park”, he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention, and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory. More significant than the number of Edison’s patents (1,093 in the US alone) was the widespread impact of his inventions: electric light and power utilities, sound recording, and motion pictures all established major new industries world-wide. (More from Wikipedia)
You might remember the direct-to-disc recording technique that was briefly popular among audiophiles toward the putative end of the vinyl era in the late 1970’s; the recorded music from the studio is transferred directly to a master disk without intervening taping and overdubbing and such. Warsaw Pakt has the distinction of performing on the first such transfer among rock recordings and even got an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for their trouble. Of course, this was also the standard means of recording music after Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, well into the 1950’s.
(August 2011)
