🚀 go-pugleaf

In the mid-fifties, or perhaps the late fifties, I had a Little Golden
record (7" diameter, 78 rpm, yellow vinyl) called "The Magic Record"
with two grooves -- I think it was only two -- so you go two different
versions of the (childrens') song.

The childrens' toys where you pull a string and an acoustic phonograph
plays a random short tune/speech fragment/what have you work on the same
principle, but with a dozen or so grooves.

Around 1967 or so, there was a novelty record whose title I forget, in
which side 2 had the label printed as a mirror image of side 1, and the
groove played the entire contents of side 1 in reverse.  I think the
groove played the normal way (outside to inside).  Side 1 was a song?
chant? which went "(clank... clank... clank...) They're COMing to
TAKE me AWAY, ha-ha, they're COMing to TAKE me AWAY ha-ha, hee-hee,
ho-ho to the FUNNYfarm, where LIFE is BEAUTiful ALL the TIME and I'll
be HAPpy to SEE those NICE young MEN in their CLEAN white COATS).  An
interesting technique was used: apparently the rhythm was recorded
normally, then rhythm and chant must have been recorded together on
a system with gradually decreasing speed, then played back with
exactly reciprocal gradually increasing speed.  Anyway, the rhythm
stayed even but the voice quality slowly and gradually changed from
normal to semi-"chipmunk."  

I wonder if the multi-helix technique could be used on a CD. It seems
to me that it probably could.  I also wonder just HOW old it is -- are
there multigroove aleatory-playback Edison cylinders out there somewhere?

BTW, in the days of analog/mechanical recording it was often suggested
that spiraling the groove from the center out, so linear speed and
fidelity increased with elapsed time, would be far more appropriate for
e.g. classical recordings where the loudest passages occur at the end.
This was actually tried, but the combination of automatic changers, and,
probably, the steady hand needed to lower a tone arm over the CENTER,
and, perhaps, the fact that not that much of the classical literature
was precisely 20 to 30 minutes in length kept it from ever catching on.

--Daniel P. B. Smith
dpbsmith@world.std.com