Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!mintaka!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tekred!tonyo
From: tonyo@tekred.CNA.TEK.COM (Tony Ozrelic)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Weirdness Electronics
Message-ID: <6518@tekred.CNA.TEK.COM>
Date: 2 Nov 90 21:37:50 GMT
References: <1089700002@cdp> <1883@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us> <6507@tekred.CNA.TEK.COM> <3897@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: tonyo@tekred.CNA.TEK.COM (Tony Ozrelic)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc.,  Redmond, OR.
Lines: 26

In article <3897@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>I wondered what happened to that "neurophone". I recall some person
>demonstrating it to me and Warren McCulloch in the '50s, but don't
>remember the details.  I think it was a smooth electrode that you move
>across the skin near your ear, and it is modulated so that you
>actually hear some sounds. I think the inventor was a dolphin
>researcher who eventually drowned in some accident.  Does anyone
>remember his name?
>...
>The inventor claimed hi-fi audition, but if that had been tru, I'd
>certainly remember the episode more clearly.
>
>Do you remember any more about it?

It seems to me that Flanagan claimed to invent it in the early 1960s, when
he was a "boy genius". I may have a book that outlines some of the details;
if I recall correctly, he claimed to discover the "Neurophone Effect" while
fooling around with a step-up transformer connected to the output of a radio.
The output of the transformer was somewhat high and the electrostatic effect
of placing the electrodes near your ear made tinny sounds. He later "improved"
the sound quality by modulating a (100kHz? 300kHz?) carrier with the audio
(this might give you a "skin effect" in more ways than one :-). It always
seemed to me that if the effect could give you quality audio, you would see
Koss or Stax offering Neurophonic headsets.

tony o.