Audio Innovation and the Bell Labs Miracle

Thomas.Dennehy

New Member
Jan 5, 2012
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Bloomfield Hills MI
There is a forthcoming book about the legacy of innovation from AT&T Bell Laboratioies (aka "Bell Labs"). The New York Times ran this preview on Sunday 26-Feb. As a Bell Labs alum (Signal Processing Laboratory, Whippany NJ 1982-91) I could not be prouder.

A timeline of audio innovation at the Labs:
  • 1927 -- Negative feedback amplifier. Aids development of radio and high-fidelity amplifiers.
  • 1927 -- First high-fidelity sound recording. Reproduced sound range is extended by one octave at each end of the scale.
  • 1933 -- First transmission of stereo sound. A symphony concer is broadcast live over telephone lines from Philadelphia to Washington.
  • 1948 -- Information Theory. Which leads us to ...
  • 1957 -- Digitized music. First demonstration of digitized and computer-synthesized music. (Neil Young says thank you.)
  • 1958 -- The laser. Crucial for communications, surgical and DVD technologies.

In summary, Bell Labs was a great place to be a young engineer. It offered a unique combination of freedom, responsibility, and access to the gods (Thompson, Ritchie, Weinberger, et. al.). It is greatly missed.


Cheers,
TGD
 

FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
6,455
29
405
I wanted so bad to work there.. Think Anything you're using right now it came from there somehow ... ANYTHING. even the dial tone or PCM or Hi-Fi or Cell Phone or Wireless Com ANYTHING.. Well Mouse and GUI is from Xerox PARC but ... you got the point;) ... And now after having badly judged the market Lucent (I know, I know, Alcalu) and Bell Labs are a mere shell of their former , fabled life :(
 

Ronm1

Member Sponsor
Feb 21, 2011
1,745
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wtOMitMutb NH
In my early h/w days had a CDC system we maintained at a Bell labs site. Interesting place...
Part of the contract was an Analog puter and the largest plotter I have ever seen.
 

Phelonious Ponk

New Member
Jun 30, 2010
8,677
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My dad worked for the Bell System, and bought AT&T stock for 37 years. When AT&T was split up, he had to choose stock allocations to the divested companies. He chose a small chunk of Lucent, because he was such a huge believer in Bell Labs, and a large chunk of Bell South, because that seeme to be where the growth was. Lucent didn't fare so well. But you're right, for decades, Bell Labs loomed large.

Tim
 

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