Fritz Pfleumer (20 March 1881 – 29 August 1945) was a German
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...
who invented
magnetic tape for recording sound.
Biography
Fritz was born as the son of Robert and Minna, née Hünich. His father Robert (1848–1934) was born in
Greiz
Greiz () is a town in the state of Thuringia, Germany, and is the capital of the district of Greiz. Greiz is situated in eastern Thuringia, east of state capital Jena, on the river '' White Elster''.
Greiz has a large park in its center (Fürs ...
, and his mother Minna (1846–1932) was born in
Freiberg
Freiberg is a university and former mining town in Saxony, Germany. It is a so-called ''Große Kreisstadt'' (large county town) and the administrative centre of Mittelsachsen district.
Its historic town centre has been placed under heritage c ...
. Fritz had five siblings – Mimi, Hans, Hermann, Otto, and Mizi. Hans emigrated to the US.
Pfleumer developed a process for putting metal stripes on cigarette papers and reasoned that he could similarly coat a magnetic stripe to be used as an alternative to wire recording.
In 1927, after experimenting with various materials, Pfleumer used very thin paper that he coated with iron oxide powder using lacquer as glue. He received a patent in 1928.
On 1 December 1932 Pfleumer granted
AEG the right to use his invention when building the world's first practical
tape recorder
An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present ...
, called
Magnetophon K1. It was first demonstrated at the
IFA
IFA or Ifa may refer to:
Organisations
Economics
* Independent financial adviser, a type of financial services professional in the UK
* Index Fund Advisors
* Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, representing actuaries in the UK
* Institute of Ac ...
in 1935.
References
External links
videopreservation.conservation-us.org– Museum of Historic Video Equipment – Beginnings of Magnetic Recording – Audio, 1920–30s
by Wayne Carlson,
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
The History of Magnetic Recording by Steven Schoenherr, University of San Diego 2002Retrieved 2011-12-17
Fritz Pfleumer– German biography of Pfleumer from a local (Dresden) point of view
1881 births
1945 deaths
20th-century German inventors
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