Because of this, the phonautograph was well-known in the scientific community and used most commonly in laboratory settings. Nobody really thought to use this kind of technology for audio recording and playback. That is, until Edison created the phonograph.
•The phonograph, introduced to the world in 1877 in the Scientific American, not only could record sound but replay it as well. Edison’s phonograph functioned by inscribing audio information onto a sheet of heavy tinfoil wrapped around a cardboard cylinder for later retrieval and playback. Not the greatest sounding mechanism in the world, but it was a start. In fact, Alexander Graham Bell took Edison’s design and improved upon it, using wax instead of foil to record sound waves and calling the machine the graphophone.