The 1916 Edison Diamond Disc player

 I was 9 years old in 1967, when my family moved into a large Dutch styled house built in 1901. It had coal heat, 12 foot ceilings and was more of a museum than a house. My dad had purchased the house lock, stock, and barrel with everything the previous owner had acquired in the 60 years families lived there. This included furniture and artifacts dating as far back as the 1700 and 1800’s.

 Among the numerous antiques was a 1916 Edison Disc Player. It quickly became my favorite toy among the numerous relics and antiques.    

 These record players have a crank to wind to spin the record so I would wind it up and listen to various recordings from the classics to ragtime and even comedy albums that still made me laugh despite the aged comedy.

 This record player was unique. It was a model that was encased and when closed was just a nice piece of furniture. It held the horn in the middle section behind a panel of cloth and had a place for the records in the bottom shelf. A lid opened to expose the platter and apply the needle arm to play the records. The only thing visible that indicated it was a record player was the hand crank on the side. Previous models were flat boxes with huge horns protruding out with nowhere to store the records.

 By the time I turned 12 years old we had moved away and my parents kept many of the beautiful and valuable antiques from the old house, the Edison included. When my father passed away my mother planned to move into a smaller place and offered my brothers, sister, and I our choice of the antiques. 

 Of all the items I choose only the Edison and still possess it today. It became the main inspiration for my product.

 Why now?

  I joined the Customer Service Engineering department at Sperry Univac in 1981 (now UNISYS) and stayed with them for 17 years. Sperry was one of the first companies to offer a PC for home use. I witnessed the beginnings of the personal computer and watched it evolve throughout the years. Many changes occurred in hardware but one thing remained constant to this day concerning personal computers:

 When not in use they are just piles of unsightly metal boxes with wires hanging out.

It simply makes sense to offer an alternative to computer users.

 What’s the difference between this and an armoire?

 The typical armoire offered for storing computers is bulky and the positioning of computer components is awkward. The CPU box and printer only fits either in the way or on the floor making accessing the disk drives and other output devices more of a stretching exercise. Our cabinets offer easy access to all components and makes best use of space.

 Thank you!
  Lou Summers