I heard about laser recording of music back in the 60s in school. Scientists were working on laser tech to record data in a block of crystal by changing small spots within the crystal. It was a 3D system, and they said that, when perfected, all the music ever created could be recorded digitally in a single crystal the size of a cigar box. That beats the crap out of the CDs we finally got in the 80s. So some things have an older history than most people realize. I never heard about the crystal recording after that one article. It was a science paper similar to Weekly Reader that we got in science classes in high school once a month. I still have some of them.
Keep in mind that Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in the 1920s. I don't remember now what he called the music delivery system, but it was definitely something that could encapsulate CDs and the crystal system you described... it did not describe a phonograph with records. That crystal system may still come to be!
I heard about laser recording of music back in the 60s in school. Scientists were working on laser tech to record data in a block of crystal by changing small spots within the crystal. It was a 3D system, and they said that, when perfected, all the music ever created could be recorded digitally in a single crystal the size of a cigar box. That beats the crap out of the CDs we finally got in the 80s. So some things have an older history than most people realize. I never heard about the crystal recording after that one article. It was a science paper similar to Weekly Reader that we got in science classes in high school once a month. I still have some of them.
Keep in mind that Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in the 1920s. I don't remember now what he called the music delivery system, but it was definitely something that could encapsulate CDs and the crystal system you described... it did not describe a phonograph with records. That crystal system may still come to be!