Word: phonograph
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...misunderstood, so maligned. Most people think it a single-purpose instrument, a movie machine. The misconception was fostered by the much ballyhooed introduction in 1981 of RCA's Selecta Vision, 15 years and $200 million in the making. Not a truly innovative technology, Selecta Vision is essentially a phonograph that uses a mechanical stylus to play prerecorded movies. Its costly debut obscured the second type of videodisc: the infinitely more versatile laser-vision disc, designed for the videodisc player introduced by Magnavox in 1978. Manufactured by Pioneer, Sony and the 3M Co., the laser-vision disc makes flexible interaction...
...building's tenants included the likes of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Mack Sennett, John Barrymore and Louis B. Mayer. Sculpted angels still hang from its flanks; a trio of cherubs intertwine arms on the fountain out front; inside, despite a rich cache of old whisky bottles, dusty phonograph records and faded copies of the Los Angeles Times, the palms rise in pleasing arcs around an empty pool in the silent courtyard...
American salesmen this month are blitzing television viewers with offers for everything from fish scalers to phonograph records. To order a product the buyer dials a toll-free 800 number on the screen. The offers come thickest in the slow after-Christmas period, when television advertising time is cheaper and consumers are too pooped to return to stores. The marketers ring up 40% of their annual sales in January...
...Bell Labs gave the world the transistor, for which three of its scientists won the 1956 Nobel Prize in physics. It also developed the laser, high-fidelity phonograph records, stereo and sound movies. In 1927, Bell Labs demonstrated the first long-distance, live, television transmission over wires. One of its early computers helped direct antiaircraft fire during World War II and knocked down 76% of Nazi buzz bombs in areas it defended in England. Bell scientists pioneered work in semiconductors, integrated circuits and microchips, all necessary parts of the computer explosion. They have now won a total of seven Nobel...
...phonograph grooves vary minutely in their spacing and contour, depending on the dynamics and frequency of the music on them. Lintgen says that grooves containing soft passages look black or dark gray. As the music gets louder or more complicated, the grooves turn silvery. Percussive accents are marked by tiny "jagged tooth marks." The doctor correlates what he sees with what he knows about music, matching the patterns of the grooves with compositional forms. In a way, it is like reading a graph of a given work's structure. What is amazing about Lintgen is that he can read...