A closer look
Long before voicemail or even cassette tapes, a Danish engineer named Valdemar Poulsen decided the best way to capture a voice was to magnetically abuse a spool of piano wire. In 1898, he patented the Telegraphone, which recorded sound by magnetizing a steel wire pulled past a recording head at a terrifying two feet per second. He originally pitched it as a way to leave messages when the phone wasn't answered. It was bulky, prone to snapping, and sounded like a ghost screaming in a tin can, but it laid the exact magnetic foundation for every VHS tape, floppy disk, and hard drive that followed.
