Das Blattnerphone und seine Freude.

[Peter Ruhrberg]

Irgendwo (dort? Zeitschichten?) habe ich gelesen, daß die Maschinen ein erhebliches Gefahrenpotential darstellten,

Diese Passage habe ich in ZS nicht gefunden, dafür eine Erwähnung in “Magnetic Recording, The First 100 Years” von Eric D. Daniel, C. Denis Mee & Mark H. Clark (1999, Seite 36):

Neither the Blattnerphone nor the Marconi-Stille machines were easy to use. Simply mounting a reel of tape was a two-person operation, since a full reel contained 2700 meters of tape and weighed over 35 kg.

In operation, the rapidly moving tape was much like a band saw, with the potential for slicing off stray fingers. It was possible to edit material by cutting tape and silver-soldering sections together, and this was a common practice by the mid-1930s. Later models had a built-in spot welder. The tape, being of hardened steel, was brittle, and breakage often occurred, spilling tape into the room.

Despite the hazards, all these installations continued in use through the late 1940s, when they were replaced by other machines using coated rather than solid steel tape.

Grüße, Peter