[AV Media Matters] Metal ribbon machines

[tommy.sjoberg@mbox200.swipnet.se]

There was a giant ribbon machine, made in Germany in the thirties. At least
one was bought by the Swedish Broadcasting Company ("Radiotj=E4nst") and used
to record concerts. The music would be transfered to shellac disks for
storage because the tape was thought too expensive, and it could be
re-used. The steel ribbon was roughly 3/32" wide and quite thin, while the
spools were about 2 1/2' in diameter in cast alloy, and HEAVY. There
remains some material on ribbon in the radio archives, of surprisingly good
quality, as played on the radio a few years ago.
That's all I know, but there must be someone out there who knows more about
them, these far-from home recording equipment antedeluvians.
Tommy Sjoberg

>I am not sure if there ever were any metal ribbon magnetic "tapes" which would
>of course not need a coating if the base was of magnetic material, but of
>course there were magnetic wire recordings up until the end of WW2 and the
>growth of first paper and then plastic based magnetically coated tapes.