re: #58 Shiplord Kirel

Excuse me? What are they talking about? Magnetic wire recording was invented in the 1890s. Magnetic (steel wire) dictaphone equipment was introduced in the 1920s, and reel to reel tape machines were in large-scale use during World War 2. My copy of the March 1951 National Geographic has a big ad for an Ampex reel-to-reel tape recorder(used by Bing Crosby, doncha’ know). I owned a small reel-to-reel in 1959.
Tape recording

They are specifically talking about a phone answering machine. The article is badly written. You are correct, there were wire recording machines that early on, and tape was available during he war, but I think the article writer is trying to say that Bell Labs squelched the idea of a phone answering machine (that used tape), because of the effect it could have had on people recording phone calls and causing a decline in the use of phones by people afraid that their conversations would be recorded without their knowledge.

I think that’s what was the authors point, not well laid out.