Given the spate of record player/vinyl/turntable ideas...

Möbius Record/turntable.

A ridiculously complex mechanical arrangement spins the vinyl. The groove passes the stylus to release beautiful music.

The “record” has just one side. No need to turn it over, and it plays continuously. Until you get bored of it.
-- Frankx, Sep 30 2019

Mobius strip music box https://youtu.be/3iMI_uOM_fY
Sameish [EnochLives, Oct 05 2019]

YouTube: Techmoan: Tefifon player and Tefi cartridges https://www.youtube...watch?v=nBNTAmLRmUg
Mentioned in my anno. Relevant view of cartridge internals is at 3:20. [notexactly, Oct 07 2019]

YouTube: Techmoan: 8-track recorder and cartridges https://www.youtube...watch?v=XLZS0Sj9-1U
Mentioned in my anno. Relevant view of cartridge internals is right at the beginning. [notexactly, Oct 07 2019]

//ridiculously complex// it needn't be. All that is required is a pair of rollers between which the record passes, at least one of the rollers being actively driven.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 30 2019


Hmm, yes, that’s actually feasible.
-- Frankx, Sep 30 2019


Does the groove start at the inside or the outside?
-- pocmloc, Oct 01 2019


//inside or outside//

Definitely, one or the other.

Actually this whole thing wouldn't work very well at all. Either you'd have grooves crossing at some point, or you'd only have a single groove covering [both the one sides] - which would make your play duration rather limited. Or rather, your loop duration. Could get very annoying.
-- Frankx, Oct 01 2019


//Given the spate of record player/vinyl/turntable ideas...//

I'm waiting for "Schrödinger's record player"...
-- hippo, Oct 01 2019


//Schrödinger's record player//

...with custard?
-- Frankx, Oct 01 2019


Is it too early for snowglobe record players?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 01 2019


Yes.
-- pocmloc, Oct 01 2019


Wasn't there a ski jump return idea kicking around once?
-- wjt, Oct 05 2019


Hasn''t this already been baked? I want to say '8 track'.
-- Skewed, Oct 05 2019


Ahh, memory via the build up of crossings as encoding, with added info as how track is cut.
-- wjt, Oct 05 2019


// Hasn''t this already been baked? I want to say '8 track'. //

Closest thing in playback mechanism (needle reading a grooved tape) would be the Tefifon and Tefi cartridges [link], but, as you can see at 3:20 in the video, that's not a Möbius strip. (It is coiled, meaning that would be a twisted loop if you pulled it out straight, but the number of half-twists would be even.) The same goes for 8-track [link], as you can see right the beginning of that video.

However, that's not to say that those two systems couldn't be adapted to use Möbius strip-shaped tapes inside slightly modified cartridges. You might get crosstalk between the 'two' sides of the one-sided magnetic tape in 8-track, though.

But this idea seems to me to be intended as a non-coiled Möbius strip (i.e. a total of one half-twist), with a strip width greater than 1/10 its diameter when laid out as a circle, and not contained in a cartridge.
-- notexactly, Oct 07 2019


Obviously, the concept extends to the Klein-surface player, which picks up vibrations imbued into the surface of a pan-dimensional hyper-form. As the strange object is endlessly rotated through 4 dimensions, it retrieves pop sounds for make great benefit of all the youth.
-- zen_tom, Oct 07 2019



random, halfbakery