Early motion pictures devices

The Mutoscope was an early motion picture device, patented by Herman Casler on November 21, 1894. Like Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope it did not project on a screen, and provided viewing to only one person at a time. Cheaper and simpler than the Kinetoscope, the system—marketed by the American Mutoscope Company (later the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company)—quickly dominated the coin-in-the-slot "peep-show" business.

The Mutoscope worked on the same principle as the "flip book". The individual image frames were conventional black-and-white, silver-based photographic prints on tough, flexible opaque cards. Rather than being bound into a booklet, the cards were attached to a circular core, rather like a huge Rolodex. A reel typically held about 850 cards, giving a viewing time of about a minute.