 Wire was also used as a recording medium in black box voice recorders for aviation in the 1950s.Consumer wire recorders were marketed for home entertainment or as an inexpensive substitute for commercial office dictation recorders, but the development of consumer magnetic tape recorders starting in 1946, with the BK 401 Soundmirror, using paper-based tape, quickly drove wire recorders from the market.In 1924 a German engineer, Kurt Stille, developed the Poulsen wire recorder as a dictating machine.