The history of a tape recorder begins in the year 1878, when an American mechanic Oberlin Smith, who was inspired with a visit to the Edison’s labs, started to think about recording the telephone signals with a steely wire. A year later Smith decided to publish this idea in a scholarly magazine. The idea was not complicated: the acoustic cycles are transferred to electric cycles and the moving sonic medium is magnetized with them. During the playing the medium generates electric cycles which have identical frequency as during the recording (the cycles are then transferred to the sonic cycles). But the realisation would be more difficult …

This principal of a magnetic recording was rediscovered by a Danish inventor Valdemar Poulsen in 1898. And during the next few years he manufactures the first “sonic recorders” with a steely wire (or tape). He obtains the patents in Denmark, USA and elsewhere. His apparatus was called telegraphon and was designed for recording the phone calls during the absence of the called person. So the tape recorder was born from the idea of an answering machine …

Poulsen's tape telegraphon
(from  http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~dmorton/wire.html)

The first great demonstration of the Poulsen´s telegraphon came to fruition in 1900 on the International Exhibition in Paris. The expert journals did praise it loudly. Three years later an American company The American telegraphone company starts to manufacture these apparatuses.

At the beginning of 20s a German inventor and businessman Kurt Stille modifies the telefraphon, so that the sound could be amplified electronically. The patented rights are then sold to German and English companies. In 1925, together with another German Karl Bauer they bring out an improved answering machine, so called Dailygraph. The later version of this mechanism already adapted for inserting a recording medium in a cassette.

At the end of 20s Still’s licence is bought by a British Ludwig Blattner Picture Corporation. Blattner tries (unsuccessfully) to produce films with a synchronized sound. In his later machines he uses a steely tape for the recording. In 1931 he sells this experimental tape machine to the British BBC, but still in the same year he goes broke. Meanwhile also the British Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company receives the Still’s licence. This company together with BBC make a few tape machines for the BBC short wavelength broadcasting. Similar appliances are then used also in other countries.

In 1932 a German company AEG obtains the patent rights of Fritz Pfleumer. This man had patented the recording of a sound on a paper covered with a magnetic made from a steely powder. In 1935 AEG showed its improved “tape recorder” with a recording of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

The first tape recorder with a non-metallic tape with a magnetic layer (just like today)
(from  http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~dmorton/wire.html)

But in the USA, during the world war two, only the “wire” appliances are sold (from 1939 till 1945 about 1500 pcs. were sold). The American and the Brits “discover” the tape recorder after capturing the countries occupied by Germans. The machines manufactured according to a tape recorder do not appear in USA until 1947. In this year also the plastic tapes appear. A year later the first professional tape recorder is brought out by the Ampex corporation and also SONY starts to work on its design of a tape recorder.

The tape recorder T100 (Reverse Camera Company, USA) from 1949:
spool's diameter 5", tape's width 1/4", speed 3 3/4 " r.p.s..
(from  http://www.sundial.net/~rogerr/revere.htm)

Since the 50s the development is proceeding. In 1956 the Ampex corporation demonstrated the first record of a monochrome televisual picture (since then the word “ampex” was a synonym of the word “televisual entry”). In this year the production of tape recorders starts in Czechoslovakia, too.

The legendary Czechoslovakian two-speed tape recorder Sonet duo,
with a damper control, which was protected with a Czechoslovakian patent.
This tape recorder was made by Testla Prelouc (1959 – 1962).
(from  http://freeweb.coco.cz/oldradio.cz/mgf.htm)

In the half of the 50s RCA-Victor unsuccessfully introduces a stereophonic “cassette”. Conversely the “Compact Cassette” (1962), made by a Dutch company Phillips, soon became a standard and are used until now. The “chrome” tapes appear in 1969 (DuPont, BASF), in 1978 SONY introduces the first digital tape recorders.