On a recent business trip to Toronto, Ontario, Canada I visited the CBC offices.  CBC is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: Canada’s national public broadcaster.  In the building is a small museum of sorts which was very interesting and informative.  There was equipment and artifacts used in broadcasting throughout the CBC’s history with editorial information explaining the importance and time line for that item.

One of the artifacts I found interesting was a recordable turntable that would record live music/spoken word directly onto an empty vinyl disc at either 33 1/3 or 78 RPMs.  This was a precursor to our modern day duplicators used over 50 years ago.  For those who are not familiar with what vinyl is, they were the original records and were made out of wax with grooves carved in a circular pattern to record and play the music, spoken word, etc.

To me, this shows that the duplication process and duplicating equipment is not as modern as we may think.  The equipment has been around and in use for many years, but it’s only recently been convenient and affordable enough for common everyday use by the masses.  That’s why I see duplication not only continuing long into the future, but also flourishing as a consumer electronic product as common in the office or home as a printer/copier.

This is an image of me posing with the Presto 8N acetate engraver.  It’s much larger than the modern duplicators like the Vinpower Digital SharkCopier.

The descriptive plaque describing the Presto 8N acetate engraver.