The History of the Answering Machine

The History of the Answering Machine According to Adventures in Cybersound, the Danish telephone engineer and inventor Valdemar Poulsen patented what he called a telegraphone in 1898. The telegraphone was the first practical apparatus for magnetic sound recording and reproduction. It was an ingenious apparatus for recording telephone conversations. It recorded, on a wire, the varying magnetic fields produced by a sound. The magnetized wire could then be used to play back the sound. Early Developments Mr. Willy MÃ ¼ller invented the first automatic answering machine in 1935. This answering machine was a three-foot-tall machine popular with Orthodox Jews who were forbidden to answer the phone on the Sabbath. The Ansafone, created by inventor Dr. Kazuo Hashimoto for Phonetel, was the first answering machine sold in the USA, beginning in 1960. Classic Models According to Casio TAD History (Telephone Answering Devices), Casio Communications created the modern telephone answering device (TAD) industry as we know it today by introducing the first commercially viable answering machine a quarter of a century ago. The product- the Model 400- is now featured in the Smithsonian. In 1971, PhoneMate introduced one of the first commercially viable answering machines, the Model 400. The unit weighs 10 pounds, screens calls, and holds 20 messages on a reel-to-reel tape. An earphone enables private message retrieval. Digital Innovation The first digital TAD ​was invented by Dr. Kazuo Hashimoto of Japan in mid-1983. US patent 4,616,110 entitled Automatic Digital Telephone Answering. Voicemail U.S. Patent No. 4,371,752 is the pioneer patent for what evolved into voice mail, and that patent belongs to Gordon Matthews. Gordon Matthews held over thirty-three patents. Gordon Matthews was the founder of the VMX company in Dallas, Texas that produced the first commercial voice mail system, he has become known as the Father of Voice Mail. In 1979, Gordon Matthews formed his company, VMX, of Dallas (Voice Message Express). He applied for a patent in 1979 for his voicemail invention and sold the first system to 3M. When I call a business, I like to talk to a human - Gordon Matthews.

Soggy Sweats Famous Whiskey Speech

Soggy Sweats Famous Whiskey Speech One of the craftiest orations in the history of American politics was the Whiskey Speech, delivered in April 1952 by a young Mississippi legislator named Noah S. Soggy Sweat, Jr. The House had been debating whether to finally pop the cork on Prohibition when Sweat (later a circuit court judge and a college professor) decided to demonstrate his prowess for talking out of both sides of his mouth. The occasion was a banquet at the old King Edward Hotel in Jackson. My friends, I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey.If when you say whiskey you mean the devils brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation and despair and shame and helplessness and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.But if when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that pu ts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentlemans step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, lifes great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm, to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise. Though were tempted to call Sweats speech a lampoon, that words etymology (from the French lampons, let us drink) may betray a certain bias. In any event, the speech stands as a parody of political doublespeak and an artful exercise in employing audience-flattering connotations. The classical figure underlying the speech is distinctio: making explicit references to various meanings of a word. (Bill Clinton used the same device when he told a Grand Jury, It depends on what the meaning of the word is is.) But whereas the customary aim of distinctio is to remove ambiguities, Sweats intention was to exploit them. His initial characterization of whiskey, addressed to the teetotalers in the crowd, employs a series of dysphemismsdisagreeable and offensive impressions of the demon drink. In the next paragraph he shifts his appeal to the wets in his audience through a far more agreeable list of euphemisms. Thus he takes a firm standon both sides of the issue. In these days of duplicity in the land of spin, we lift our hearts and our glasses to the memory of Judge Soggy Sweat. Sources Orley Hood, On June 3, Soggys Speech Will Come to Life, The Clarion-Ledger (May 25, 2003)M. Hughes, â€Å"Judge Sweat and ‘The Original Whiskey Speech,’ The Jurist (Vol. I, No. 2, Spring 1986)If by Whiskey, The Clarion Ledger (February 24, 1996)