Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1894-03-16
EDISON'SKINETOSCOPE
ANOTHER WONDER FROM THE
WAND OF THE WIZARD.

without an Actor ON the stage.
Thomas A. Edison exhibited his
new invention, the kinetograph and
kaleidoscope. to Sun reporter the other
day. The latter said: Everybody has
seen the nickel-in-the-slot machines,
which contain the monographs and
play any kind OF tune previously sang
into them; Mr.. Edison has now ready
for the market similar machine con-
tanning his moving pictures, which is
set a-going when a nickel is put in the
slot. This machine he calls kineto.
scope. The kinetograph is the ma
chine which takes the photographs,
and the kinetoscope the machine
which displays them to the eye.
In the top of the kinetoscope, which
is polished oak box like the phono.
graph machines, is a peep-hole, about
two inches long and half an inch
broad, covered with glass. The inter-
ior of the box is lighted by electricity
and shows picture about two inches
broad and one inch high. The kireto.
scope in Mr.. Edison's workshop, which
was exhibited to the reporter con-
tains a picture of a barber shop.
There is the barber, about one inch in
height. standing at his chair and three
victims waiting to be shaved.
But waiting is not the correct word
to use in connection with the picture.
One OF the Lilliputian actors rises and
walks across the picture to the chair,
sits down and is titled back. The
apron and towels are adjusted in a
trice with no gentleness OTIS a 5-cent
shop and the hand of the barber
moves professionally over the face of
the patron and under his chin before
the proper razor is chosen. The razor
is slapped vigorously over the strop a
few times and then begins a Scent
shave that resembles the swing of a
scythe in the hands of a farmer. The
victim writhes but he has to stand it.
Just ut this moment one of the
waiting manikins who has picked up .
newspaper and has been reading. is At.
tackled with fit Of laughter at some
thing he sees. and rises from the chair
slaps the paper, and, pointing to the
place, hands the sheet to the other
waiting customer, who rises, notes the
place, resumes his seat, reads the pa
per, and also falls q victim to laugh
ter. The barber all this time has been
busy. He rubs the head Of the man
in the chair and combs his hair. One
Of the signs on the wall is suggestive.
1t reads: "With or without chloro-
f0rm?"
Mr.. Edison regards the nickel-in. the
slot machine as . mere toy. That is
not what he 10 after, although it 10 en-
tertsining. He said: "Some time
ago it occurred to me that it might be
possible to invent something that
would do for the eye what the phono.
graph does for the ear, an instrument,
in fact, that would faithfully record
and reproduce practically all motion.
II was familiar with the zeotrope.
an instrument on which certain pic.
lures were painted and which seemed
to give the figures sort of motion,
and I was also very much interested
in the experiments of Muybridge, who
photographed horses in motion by in
stautaneous photographs and repro
duced their movements, but all these
we're very crude and resulted in jerky
motions. The eye is too quick for
such photographs. saw that to pro-
duce pure motion, pictures must be
taken with sufficient rapidity to record
movements of less than an inch in
any part of the body, longer move
ment than that producing a jar which
destroyed the illusion.
Then began q series of experiments
in photographing moving objects, and
we got our apparatus to take 25 differ
ent photographs in a second, but this
was not sufficient. l found that the
human retina was capable of taking
about As or 46 photographs and conn.,
municating them 70 the brain, and
more rapid photography was lost upon
the brain. The difficulty was to give
a sufficient exposure even for the best
instantaneous Photographic apparatus.
at is necessary for q good picture
that the gelatine plate should be al.
lowed to have q certain fraction OF
time in which to record the rays OF
light that form the picture, and the
great problem was to get an electrical
machine that would move the gelatine
plate along so rapidly between expos.
ures that 46 pictures second could
be taken and enough time could be
given for each picture to be taken
properly. l found that if plate were
exposed the sixtieth part of a second
to scene that was very light, with a
very dark background, perfect phot'
ograph resulted.
1t was but a simple process then to
figure out how fast the machine would
have to run between exposures to give
46 pictures each sixtieth part Of 8
second exposure. 1 figured that il
would have to move from one expos
ure to another in one 1S5th of sec'
ond, that is to say that the instrument
must be standing still for exposure
three.fourths OF the second and must
be racing along at an enormous rate o
speed the rest OF the second SO as to
get the whole 46 plates properly placed
for exposure.
at was difficult job to get ma
chine that would do the work, and