First instance of data recording

First instance of data recording, not symbolically but in a form to be played back to reproduce the original data. It's a concept that goes well beyond simply recording sound.
Posted by: --- (pronounced " ")

Oldest known recording is the French children's song recorded with candle smoke... the "played back" part, took computers, but it did work. if with a rather high signal:noise ratio. Proof of concept.

Kind of like daVinci's autogyro just had to wait for engines to fly it. (Earlier example of jpeg: Shroud of Turin.)

But, yay, Tom, for the inventing and the marketing!