I listened to Switched-On Bach, a 1980s album of the best of Bach, done on synthesizers. It was produced by Don Dorsey. In the liner notes, he talks about how Bach took bits and pieces from Vivaldi. ( I think it was Vivaldi. I can’t really recall.) In the booklet, he referred to this as “sampling.” However, ask a person off the street, and they would think that “sampling was invented recently. So, tell me, who invented the car. No, not that one, the one before him. No, not that one either. No, wait, at second thought, who, of the ∞ number of people who invented the motion picture at the same time actually was the inventor?
But really, what concepts and ideas existed far before people think they did? Also, which ideas/things were invented by someone else then is commonly thought? The Standard OP Disclaimers Apply (TSOPDA)
My dad claims to have thought of ‘rotating’ advertising boards, showing multiple adverts, long before they became a reality. He never can quite tell me when he thought of them, though.
In 1979 I worked for a guy who was going to get rich broadcasting rock music videos 24 hours a day. All he needed was a lease (or whatever it took) on an unused satellite transponder (or whatever he thought it was he needed). He talked it up to anyone who might give him financial backing and a professional reputation. I remember getting thrown out of Dick Clark’s office when he tried to get Clark’s name for an endorsement.
Most people had the attitude – where the hell are you going to get all those videos? :rolleyes: He really though that all he had to do was cut a deal on the satellite, and everything else would fall into place without him putting up a dime of his own. After all, that is how Hollywood works.
24 Hour rock videos. Who would want something like that?
My wife often tells the story about how she told her ex that they should try and develop health insurance for pets. You pay a little every month and if your pet needed surgery, the insurance would cover it.
Back in high school ('90, I think) I invented Liquid Pope, but due to the threat of lawsuits, never took it very far. Still, there are a couple hundred bottles of it floating around out there somewhere.
Wendy Carlos released Switched On Bach in 1968, followed by a series of similar albums, including The Well Tempered Synthesizer (1969). Sometime in the late 70s or early 80s (sorru I can’t remember exactly when), she underwent a sex-change operation and has since released albums as Walter Carlos.
When reading a technical history of television, I learned the facsimile machines were invented as early as the 1840s. One system invented by Giovanni Caselli was used to send thousands of faxes between Paris and Lyon, France in the period 1865-1870.
Re: fax machines - In the early 80’s while working as a gofer in the meteorology department at the University of Wisconsin, a part of my job was to tear off the recent maps generated by the National Weather Service from the “facsimile machine”.
When they appeared in offices years later, everyone was shocked to know they weren’t brand new technology. I was kicking myself for not thinking of the commercial applications at the time and making myself rich.
I thought they were always female, and just used a “Nom de Plume” because computers and synthisizers were considered a guy thing, and her manager felt her records wouldn’t sell otherwise?
