Retro Techno: 19th Centuary Telegraphone

This was the first step in an evolutionary line that may be close to extinction. The Danish inventor Valdemar Poulsen created the recording device using a telephone, an electromagnet and a long piece of wire.

It was clever, but not a huge hit, and was never used domestically. In the 1930s an answering machine was developed that was apparently popular with orthodox Jews, who couldn’t answer the phone on the Sabbath.

The apparatus, though, was 3ft tall. The 1960s saw practical domestic models enter the market, but the answering machine’s boom time was the 1970s and 80s.

The concept of screening calls was born, then during the 1990s voicemail happened, signalling the death knell of the answering machine. Today, who needs one when you can have an answering service that’s invisible?

Posted on August 8, 2009 | Filed Under Reviews

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