Oberlin Smith (March 22, 1840 – July 19, 1926) was an American
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...
who published one of the earliest works dealing with
magnetic recording
Magnetic storage or magnetic recording is the storage of data on a magnetized medium. Magnetic storage uses different patterns of magnetisation in a magnetizable material to store data and is a form of non-volatile memory. The information is ac ...
in 1888.
Biography
He was born on March 22, 1840, in
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
, to George R. and Salome (Kemp) Smith.
He started a small machine shop in
Bridgeton, New Jersey
Bridgeton is a city in Cumberland County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is the county seat of Cumberland CountyFerracute Machine Company in 1877. For the entire existence of the company he was the president and chief engineer.
He died on July 19, 1926, in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
.
Magnetic recording
On September 8, 1888, Smith published a short note entitled "Some Possible Forms of the Phonograph" in the British journal ''Electrical World'', where he suggested (probably for the first time) the use of permanent magnetic impressions for the recording of sound.Smith, Oberlin (1888 September 8 "Some possible forms of phonograph," ''The Electrical World'', 12 (10) : 116–117. Smith suggested using cotton or silk thread, into which steel dust or short clippings of fine wire could be suspended. These particles were to be magnetized in accordance with the
alternating current
Alternating current (AC) is an electric current which periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time in contrast to direct current (DC) which flows only in one direction. Alternating current is the form in whic ...
from a
microphone
A microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike (), is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and public ...
source. Smith also discussed the possibility of using a hard metal wire or chain, but preferred the thread.
Smith built a machine to spin steel dust into thread, but could not harden the dust because of oxidation. As implementing his ideas would require thousands of hours of work, he published his theories but no one attempted to implement them. Many of Smith's ideas were independently reproduced by
Valdemar Poulsen
Valdemar Poulsen (23 November 1869 – 23 July 1942) was a Danish engineer who made significant contributions to early radio technology. He developed a magnetic wire recorder called the telegraphone in 1898 and the first continuous wave radio ...
when he developed the first true magnetic recorder.