Print

The Telephone Answering Machine Completes its 100th Year

By Esper Fogh

Keys, wallet, and mobile phone are the pocket equipment that a lot of us are carrying with us all the time. Against the tyranny of the telephone there is a simple alleviation: The answering machine. Its history dates much further back than that of the mobile phone, and moreover its inventor is Danish: Valdemar Poulsen.


Valdemar Poulsen (1869-1942) was son of judge of the Supreme Court Jonas Poulsen and was, of course, destined to study. But he paid little interest to anything but physics and experiments. He did his A levels though, but later discontinued his medical studies. He failed the entrance examination to the Technical University of Denmark. Young Valdemar then became an engineer’s apprentice at Søren Frich’s Factories in Aarhus and afterwards he got a position as assistant in the technical department of KTAS [Copenhagen Telephone Company Ltd.]

During his work there he got in 1898 the idea for his first great invention, the electromagnetic phonograph, or the telegraphone as he called it. Valdemar Poulsen discovered that it was possible to speak into a microphone and have its electric signals magnetize plate or a wire so that the speech could be played again later. During this period of his life Poulsen formed a friendship with engineer P.O. Pedersen. The two of them collaborated for the rest of their lives.

The telegraphone became no goldmine to Valdemar Poulsen. Companies were established both in Denmark and in the US with the purpose of producing and selling the telegraphone, but they were never really successful.

About 1920 the telegraphone was almost forgotten. However, in KTAS it was used as "exchange annunciator" in the Telephone House in Nørregade for a long time: When subscribers called it was no longer a lady who answered with the name of the exchange, but the metal disc of the telegraphone.

The first telephone answering machine sank into oblivion. Nevertheless, Valdemar Poulsen is today celebrated internationally as the father of magnetic storage. Because when it became possible to amplify electric signals, his basic invention became really important. Magnetic data storage forms the foundation of apparatuses such as tape recorders, video cassette players, and computers – as well as modern telephone answering machines.

It was, however, the so-called arc transmitter developed from 1902 together with P.O. Pedersen that secured Valdemar Poulsen the admiration of his contemporaries and the title of honorary doctor at the Technical University of Denmark. But that is a different story …

Footnote:
Read more in: "Trådløs. Valdemar Poulsen og radiobølgerne" ["Wireless. Valdemar Poulsen and the Radio Waves" - only available in Danish], Tema 1, Post & Tele Museum 1998. 48 pages with 55 illustrations in black/white and colour. DKK 45 (excl. p&p).


Print

All rights reserved. No part of this website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or ortherwise, whitout the prior written permission of the publisher.