One Hundred and Twenty Five Years Ago Today

And over 60 years before they would line the walls of diners everywhere (and become staples in hundreds, if not thousands, of movies about the swinging ’50s), the first jukebox, built by the Pacific Phonograph Company, went into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco and launched the Music-on-Demand revolution. (See the Wired obituary.) Unlike a modern jukebox, which blasted music though built in speakers, this early version required the listener to use a stethoscope-like tube that was attached to an Edison Class M electric phonograph to hear the recording.

And then a mere sixty-five years later, as chronicled in our post last month, TI would launch the mobile music revolution. Forget Apple. Forget Sony. Forget RCA. The real revolutionaries that made music on demand are long out of the music business.