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Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff. The name AMPEX is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence.〔Abramson,(The History of television, 1942 to 2000 ) – McFarland, 2003 – ISBN 9780786412204, page 286, Chapter 2, footnote 34 "1944 he founded Ampex (the name was created from his initials, AMP, plus "ex" for excellence)"〕 At one time public, the remaining ongoing business unit (Ampex Data Systems Corporation) was acquired by Delta Information Systems in October 2014, with the original parent, Ampex Corporation, ceasing operations in October 2014. Ampex's first great success was a line of reel-to-reel tape recorders developed from the German wartime Magnetophon system at the behest of Bing Crosby. Ampex quickly became a leader in audio tape technology, developing many of the analog recording formats for both music and movies that remained in use into the 1990s. Starting in the 1950s the company began developing video tape recorders, which set the studio standards for decades, and later introduced the helical scan concept that make home video players possible. They also introduced multi-track recording, slow-motion and instant playback television, and a host of other advances. Ampex's tape business was rendered obsolete during the 1990s, and the company turned to digital storage products. They never managed to become a player in this field, and the company was moribund by the 2000s. == Origin == Russian inventor Alexander Matthew Poniatoff established the company in San Carlos, California, in 1944 as the Ampex Electric and Manufacturing Company. The name came from his initials plus "ex" to avoid using the name AMP (AMP, née Aircraft and Marine Products) already in use. During World War II, Ampex was a small manufacturer of high quality electric motors and generators for radars that used alnico 5 magnets from General Electric.〔(The History of Magnetic Recording by Steven Schoenherr, University of San Diego, Nov 5, 2002 )〕 Ampex's first offices were at 1313 Laurel St. San Carlos California, "Howard Ave. at Laurel".〔(Ampex Buildings in October 2000 )〕 Near the end of the war, while serving in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, Major Jack Mullin was assigned to investigate German radio and electronics experiments. He discovered the Magnetophons with AC biasing on a trip to Radio Frankfurt. The device produced much better fidelity than shellac records. Mullin acquired two Magnetophon recorders and 50 reels of BASF Type L tape, and brought them to America where he produced modified versions. He demonstrated them to the Institute of Radio Engineers in San Francisco on May 16, 1946.〔 Bing Crosby, a big star on radio at the time, was receptive to the idea of pre-recording his radio programs. He disliked the regimentation of live broadcasts, and much preferred the relaxed atmosphere of the recording studio. He had already asked the NBC network to let him pre-record his 1944-45 series on transcription discs, but the network refused, so Crosby had withdrawn from live radio for a year and returned (this time to the recently created ABC) for the 1946-47 season only reluctantly. Another possible motivation wasn't so much that Crosby wanted the more relaxed atmosphere of taping vs live but that live network radio required performing two identical shows a night, one for the east coast and one for the west coast. This may have been what Crosby was hoping to avoid, as that was the argument Crosby used with the radio network when he asked to use transcription disc recordings of his show. Those recordings were made directly from the live east coast show, as were the later taped versions. In June 1947, Mullin, who was pitching the technology to the major Hollywood movie studios, got the chance to demonstrate his modified tape recorders to Crosby. When Crosby heard a demonstration of Mullin's tape recorders, he immediately saw the potential of the new technology and commissioned Mullin to prepare a test recording of his radio show. Ampex was finishing its prototype of the Model 200 tape recorder and Mullin used the first two models as soon as they were built. After a successful test broadcast, ABC agreed to allow Crosby to pre-record his shows on tape. Crosby immediately appointed Mullin as his chief engineer and placed an order for $50,000 worth of the new recorders so that Ampex (then a small six-man concern) could develop a commercial production model from the prototypes.〔 Crosby Enterprises was Ampex's West Coast representative until 1957. 〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ampex」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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