Martinville’s phonautograph

The French printer and inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville invented the phonautograph in 1857. The machine comprises a vibrating membrane, fixed to the end of an acoustic funnel, and an attached stylus. Sound wave vibrations caused the membrane to move the stylus which in turn would trace the waves onto a soot-blackened cylinder.
 
The invention was thus an early machine for recording sound. As the name suggests, it was not intended to play back sound but merely record it in written form. It is believed that Scott de Martinville based his phonautograph on the workings of the human ear.