The inventor of an automated “carousel” cart machine player that found wide use in radio has passed away.
William Edison Moulic Jr. died Friday, Aug. 12, in Bloomington, Ill. He was 94.
Moulic, his father Edison and brother Robert established Moulic Specialties Co. in 1945. It became Sono-Mag Corp. in 1968, according to an obituary posted by Calvert & Metzler Memorial Home.
Bloomington, Ill., was something of a cart machine capital around that time, home also to ATC, ITC and Audi-Cord, one radio observer noted.
By 1959, Moulic was building automated tape cartridge machines for radio stations; he patented a system under the trademark McCarta (short for “magnetic cartridge tape”). He patented the carousel that rotated carts in 1962 and held the patent for 25 years, according to the account, which estimated the number sold at 10,000 or more.
By 1970, his company’s DP-1 product became the most used automation system digital programmer in the U.S.
In 1940 and 1941, Moulic taught classes in the electrical engineering department of the Pratt Institute School of Science & Technology, in Brooklyn, N.Y. After the outbreak of World War II he was hired as an associate professor by the University of New York to teach electronics to Army Signal Corps trainees, according to the obituary.
His wife, Effie, passed away earlier. He is survived by three daughters, seven grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.
