Happy Birthday 33 1/3

[O]

64 years ago today, Columbia brought out the 33 1/3 LP record,
replacing the 78's.

-According to Fox News

-Owen

[John Hood]

Wasn't it replacing the 45's and competing with RCA?

JH

"O" <ow...@denofinequityx.com> wrote in message
news:210620122055063567%ow...@denofinequityx.com...

[William Sommerwerck]

> Wasn't it replacing the 45's and competing with RCA?

You have that exactly backwards.

RCA didn't want to pay royalties to Columbia for its LP patents. So it came
up with the big-hole 45rpm record, and a changer that rapidly changed the
disks. It was, in effect, a mini version of the 78rpm record.

[Kerrison]

On Jun 22, 7:33 am, "William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgee...@comcast.net>
wrote:

What about an anniversary to mark the ill-fated 33.1/3 LPs issued in
1931 by RCA, starting with the Beethoven 5th under Stokowski in its
first American recording (L 7001)? It was reissued in a Music and Arts
4-CD set six years ago (CD-1173).

[O]

In article <js13jf$l4u$1...@dont-email.me>, William Sommerwerck

Fox News got it right?? Well, golly! Must've tapped the right phones.

-Owen

[JohnA]

This is exactly as it appears on the web page (i.e., no editing). This originally appeared in High Fidelity in the early 1970s.


from: http://www.musicinthemail.com/audiohistoryLP.html

The following narrative was told by Edward Wallerstein (1891-1970) about the development of the LP record in 1948.

[excerpt]

In April 1948, two months beforc the LP's first public showing, Paley called David Sarnoff` of RCA and told him that we had a new development in the record field that we would like very much for him to see. A meeting was arranged in the board room of CBS, and I demonstrated the LP. Not much was said, but I did have the impression that General Sarnoff was pretty upset. In the silence that followed, Paley said he'd be glad to discuss an arrangement for licensing. Probably, when they left, Sarnoff's men told him that there was nothing patentable about the dovice. In fact there are no basic patents on the LP, so RCA was forced to do its own research.They came back to us in a few days and said they weren't intersted and I think it was a bit of a blow to Paley that he wasn't going to make a lot of money in licensing.

Within a fcw weeks RCA in turn invited us to view what their developments were. They laid partcular emphasis on tape on a consumer level. Well, we had been working with tape longer than they had, and we saw no prospects for revolutionizing the record industry with tape, This was just a buff as they had nothing to show. As a matter of fact they didn't even demonstrate a tape recorder to us- only talked about it. The 45 wasn't even mentioned and prohably wasn't on their minds at the time. Apparently it wasn't idea they had come up with earlicr, discardcd, and then resurrected as some sort of answer to Columbia.

I was glad it wcnt the way it did. Actually , I think that Paley was badly advised on the possibility of a licensing arrangement twhich was the only rcason he showed it to RCA. The only protection that Columbia had for its new development was the term "LP" itself. which I had originated and which we, had then copyrighted. As a consequence., although many other firms could make long-playing records only Columlia could make an LP. However, because of its constant usage the term has since passed into the vocabulary along with nylon and aspirin.

[William Sommerwerck]

One can easily argue that there's nothing genuninely new about the LP, slow
speeds and narrow grooves having been used before (RCA and Edison,
respectively).

But given that patent examiners are ignorant idiots, essentially /anything/
is patentable. I don't know whether Columbia actually received patents on
long-playing records, but there's no reason it couldn't have.

[Matthew B. Tepper]

O <ow...@denofinequityx.com> appears to have caused the following letters
to be typed in news:220620120806411299%ow...@denofinequityx.com:

Maybe it was reported by Shepard Smith.

I just realized that this must be where a particular conservative friend of
mine heard of this anniversary, which he mentioned last night. Naturally,
I filled in for him lots of information which had been skipped over.

--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!!
Read about "Proty" here: http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/proty.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of my employers.

[Matthew B. Tepper]

JohnA <jano...@yahoo.com> appears to have caused the following letters
to be typed in news:aaa2edae-ae4d-45bc...@googlegroups.com:

> I was glad it went the way it did. Actually , I think that Paley was
> badly advised on the possibility of a licensing arrangement which was the

> only rcason he showed it to RCA. The only protection that Columbia had

> for its new development was the term "LP" itself, which I had originated
> and which we had then copyrighted. As a consequence, although many other
> firms could make long-playing records only Columbia could make an LP.

> However, because of its constant usage the term has since passed into the
> vocabulary along with nylon and aspirin.

...to be replaced, years later, by the name of the substance from which most
of these long-playing records were made.

[O]

In article <XnsA07A773F825...@216.168.3.70>,

Matthew B. Tepper <oyţ@earthlink.net> wrote:

> O <ow...@denofinequityx.com> appears to have caused the following letters
> to be typed in news:220620120806411299%ow...@denofinequityx.com:
>
> > In article <js13jf$l4u$1...@dont-email.me>, William Sommerwerck
> ><grizzle...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> >> > Wasn't it replacing the 45's and competing with RCA?
> >>
> >> You have that exactly backwards.
> >>
> >> RCA didn't want to pay royalties to Columbia for its LP patents. So it
> >> came up with the big-hole 45rpm record, and a changer that rapidly
> >> changed the disks. It was, in effect, a mini version of the 78rpm
> >> record.
> >>
> >>
> > Fox News got it right?? Well, golly! Must've tapped the right phones.
>
> Maybe it was reported by Shepard Smith.

Yes. It was. I was just making a backhanded crack at Rupert Murdoch.

>
> I just realized that this must be where a particular conservative friend of
> mine heard of this anniversary, which he mentioned last night. Naturally,
> I filled in for him lots of information which had been skipped over.

It was in the final portion of Smith's newscast, where he usually does
an interesting "light news" spot. "It was 64 years ago today..."

-Owen

[Matthew B. Tepper]

O <ow...@denofinequityx.com> appears to have caused the following letters

to be typed in news:220620121526355024%ow...@denofinequityx.com:

> In article <XnsA07A773F825...@216.168.3.70>,

> Matthew B. Tepper <oyþ@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> O <ow...@denofinequityx.com> appears to have caused the following
>> letters to be typed in
>> news:220620120806411299%ow...@denofinequityx.com:
>>
>> > In article <js13jf$l4u$1...@dont-email.me>, William Sommerwerck
>> ><grizzle...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >> > Wasn't it replacing the 45's and competing with RCA?
>> >>
>> >> You have that exactly backwards.
>> >>
>> >> RCA didn't want to pay royalties to Columbia for its LP patents. So
>> >> it came up with the big-hole 45rpm record, and a changer that
>> >> rapidly changed the disks. It was, in effect, a mini version of the
>> >> 78rpm record.
>> >>
>> > Fox News got it right?? Well, golly! Must've tapped the right
>> > phones.
>>
>> Maybe it was reported by Shepard Smith.
>
> Yes. It was. I was just making a backhanded crack at Rupert Murdoch.

Nothing wrong with that, as far as I'm concerned!

>> I just realized that this must be where a particular conservative
>> friend of mine heard of this anniversary, which he mentioned last
>> night. Naturally, I filled in for him lots of information which had
>> been skipped over.
>
> It was in the final portion of Smith's newscast, where he usually does
> an interesting "light news" spot. "It was 64 years ago today..."
>
> -Owen

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Terry <bo...@clown.invalid> appears to have caused the following letters to
be typed in news:0001HW.CC0BB09F...@news.tpg.com.au:

> On Fri, 22 Jun 2012 16:33:47 +1000, William Sommerwerck wrote
> (in article <js13jf$l4u$1...@dont-email.me>):

> If you subtract 45 from 78 you get 33. Pretty significant, eh?

I think it had something to do with easily-available, or at least easily-
produced, motors, gears, and trains. Sort of like the way the size of the
IBM punch card (remember those?) pretty much matches that of the pre-1929
US banknotes -- the same paper boxes could be used for both.