dougspeterson
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More Archaeo-audio: 1943 disk cutter in film
commsysman
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dougspeterson wrote:

The 1943 flick "Calling Dr Death" shows a nurse operating a disk cuttter in her Dr's office.

The obviously portable suitcase-housed device had a transverse tonearm with the stubby cutter head lowered down onto the vinyl blank. Now I know why the 3" or so center blank in disks, that's where the spume collects during the record cutting! The disk blank would have been a 78, but the platten looked like it could hold a not-yet invented LP.

On a shelf just below was an amp, not clear if integral to the recording side but necessary for playback. She switched it on, then lowered a conventional tonearm onto the disk and immediately played back what was just recorded.

Cool! I want one!

When you say "it looks like it could hold an LP", do you mean that it looks like it could hold a 12" disc?

78 discs were commonly both 10" and 12'".

The 12" discs were used for longer recordings, primarily classical recordings, where a symphony (for example) could require several 12" records.

15" discs were also used for recording (transcribing was the term used) radio programs as they were broadcast.

commsysman
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commsysman][quote=dougspeterson wrote:

The 1943 flick "Calling Dr Death"

A power amplifier was required to drive the cutting head.

.

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