carryonsidney 6th Dec 2012
| | translated {by google}
The Pathé had worked in the development of "Pathégraphe" from 1911 and the device (also called "self-taught") is marketed in 1913.
Between 1911 and 1913, he tested for use with several classes, the work is carried out seriously since entrusted to the scientific authority of Professor Louis Liard, Sorbonne.
The Pathégraphe is best known as a method of learning foreign languages (Louis Weill method). First language is edited for Pathégraphe German (singular choice to a few months at the beginning of the First World War). English and Spanish languages will follow. The new device of the Pathé joins many other language learning methods based on the use of the sound recording.
The Pathégraphe can also make "practical articulation and diction" (Rosset method) or take music lessons.
In the full sense of the term, it is a visual learning method: the student, while listening to the disc,
sees pass before him in front of the camera, a strip of paper down synchronously on which is inscribed the text of the lesson, the paper strip 86 mm wide is perforated to allow the mechanical drive. For language learning methods, there are actually two texts: the bottom, the text in the foreign language at the top, its translation into French. A component of aluminum can be lowered or raised to hide or show the translation.
Disks used, 35 cm in diameter, are engraved vertically and read by a head with a ball of sapphire. Their reading speed is 80 revolutions per minute; playback starts from the center. Each side has a duration of 2 to 4 minutes.
The camera was mounted on a cabinet in oak. On the right side of the front are four controllers respectively for the back by a spring mechanism to adjust the speed of the aircraft at its start and up the strip of paper. Originality in comparison with devices of the era: the Pathégraphe not flag floral, the audio is played from a sound reflector housed at the bottom of the metal cover.
A controller can instantly transform the Pathégraphe in Pathéphone, so that, as we wrote in 1913: "We listen to the phonograph for fun, we listen to the" Pathégraphe "to educate and ingenuity as well known to the Pathé made sure that the instrument can become an excellent phonograph will to pleasure, after investigating we can, again, be entertained just by pressing the button and changing the disc. '
It seems that the commercial distribution of this unit has been short-lived. In 1918, the method of language learning Louis Weil recommends the use of "model Pathéphone D unit in oak portable type" and works with disks 29 cm in diameter. |