ABSTRACT
The original commercial use of the phonograph was to take down office dictation and courtroom proceedings. Edison’s early machine used a cylinder four inches long and 2 1/4 inches in diameter for both entertainment and dictation (with space for about 1,000 words of speech). From 1890 the Edison machine used a cylinder six inches long and 2 1/4 inches in diameter for dictation. That became the standard size of records for business machines of all makes until acetate discs replaced cylinders in the 1940s. Graphophone cylinders, however, were six inches long and 1 5/16 inches in diameter.
