It's Raining Tacos!

That's amazing how we could have had that technology so soon. You have to wonder how technologically advanced we would be if inventions like this were never held back.

I read the article with great interest; I even read the comments. And one of the comments reveals that magnetic tape was in fact invented in... 1928, in Germany. By 1933 they had already invented the ring shaped tape head (source: Wikipedia). So the fact that AT&T shelved the "discovery" of the magnetic tape in 1934 means exactly nothing.

@Gutza

It certainly doesn't mean nothing. Lots of things are discovered and yet don't find mainstream (or any) uses for many years.

Given its size and deep connection to society, had AT&T decided to develop a magnetic tape machine for business and consumer use in the 1930s rather than be fearful of it, the impact of such actions could have been significant indeed, if only for introducing consumer answering machines 25 years or so earlier.

At least it's not the church getting the blame for holding back technology this time.

@ted

Meh, it's what corperations do.