Inventions

The list will be added to from time to time

Kinetoscope: Invented by Dickerson while working for Edisom (who held the patent). It is a "peep show" device in which a viewer looks into a box and sees a conituous loop of film that passes in front of a light source

Mutoscope: (Patent held by Herman Casler) A peep show device in which there is apparent movement caused by a series of cards being "flipped" by a hand cranking. It was cheaper and simpler than Edison's kinetoscope and dominated the peep show market.

Phenakistoscope or Phenakistiscope: (1832) Precursor to the zoetrope. It was a disk with a series of still pictures painted on it. The disk had slits in it and the viewer would spin the disks and see the pictures in a mirror opposite it. Although Euclid had conceived of this and Newton tried some experiments, the credit for its invention rests with Joseph Plateau, a Belgian.

Praxinoscope: Invented by Charles-Émile Reynaud. Follows the Zoetrope, but with narrower slits and images seen in mirrors.

Thaumatrope: A toy popular in Victorian times and was shown to the Royal College of Physicians in London in.1824 by John Ayrton Paris. Other names associated with its invention are John Herschel (March 7, 1792 – May 11, 1871) (astronomer) and William Henry Fitton (January 1780 - 13 May 1861) (geologist) A card or disk with a different picture on both sides has two pieces of string attached to it. When the strings are twisted and then pulled out, the disk rotates rapidly causing the two pitures to become a single "moving" picture. Inventors are thought ot be either John Ayrton Paris or Peter Mark Roget

Théâtre Optique: Charles-Émile Reynaud. A more refined praxiniscope which allowed for projection of images

Zoetrope: A device which produces apparant motion from a series of still pictures which are observed through slits in a rotating drum.

Zoopraxiscope (1879) Invented by Muybridge. It involves still images painted on a glass disk which can be rotated and projected. Appears to be the motivation for the Kinetoscope