Where did the word fax come from

Most people have lived their entire lives without knowing anything about the history of fax machines. These people don’t know that the first commercial fax machine was produced over 150 years ago, or that today’s fax machines rely on largely the same technology.

Today, I’m going to explain the history of fax machines and tell you why that history is nowhere close to being complete.

Bain Sends The World’s First Fax

The world’s first fax was sent by a man named Alexander Bain. Using rudimentary technology in an age before widespread electricity usage, Bain was nonetheless able to send an image over telephone wire.

Bain did this in a creative way: he synchronized the movement of two pendulums through a clock. This synchronization helped to accurately scan an image line by line.

After being scanned, that image was transferred onto a cylinder. The cylinder was then able to reproduce that image using the synchronization of the pendulum.

By today’s standards, Bain’s first faxes were of very poor quality and resolution. Back in 1846, however, they amazed the technological community.

By the end of 1843, Bain had filed a fax machine patent for: “Improvements in producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces, and in electric printing, and signal telegraphs.”

The word ‘fax’, never came up in the patent. The patent author chose instead to use the word “electric printing.” However, during this time period, reproductions sent via various “faxing” technologies were called “facsimiles”, which is where the word “fax” comes from.

Bakewell Produces The World’s First Fax Machine

Bain’s device was technically a fax machine. However, if you looked at the machine today, you would never guess it was a fax machine.

First Popular Fax Machine

Sorry, Frederick Bakewell. As hard as you tried, your fax machine would never catch on. Later in the century, however, Bakewell’s early fax machine provided a foundation for Giovanni Caselli. Caselli was an Italian physicist who is credited with creating the world’s first commercial faxing operation.

Caselli’s fax machine – called the Pantelegraph – did something that no other fax machine had done to date: it became popular.

Why on earth was it called the Pantelegraph, you might ask? It’s made up of two words: “pantograph”, which was a machine used to copy drawings and words, and “telegraph”, which were wires capable of transmitting data over long distances. The Pantelegraph used both of these devices to provide early fax machine services to businesses and individuals in Europe.

The secret behind the success of the Pantelegraph was its use of two regulating clocks. There was one regulating clock on the sending machine and another on the receiving machine. This synchronicity allowed the Pantelegraph to transmit data anywhere a telegraph wire could be laid.

Pantelegraph systems were established between major cities in Europe. The first system was built between Paris and Lyon, France, in 1865. Two years later, the system was extended to Marseille.

Ten years after that, the communications world experienced another groundbreaking moment: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. The widespread installation of telephone wires would change the fax machine industry forever.

Turn of The Century Improvements To Fax Technology

The turn of the century was an exciting time to be on the planet. Electricity, cars, and flight were quickly entering the public mind.

At the same time, fax machine technology continued to expand. Inspired by Caselli’s success, inventors tried to tweak and tune the Pantelegraph to meet the needs of businesses and individuals around the world.

Here are a few of the notable fax machine inventors from the turn of the century:

Shelford Bidwell: Bidwell made a major breakthrough in fax machine technology. Instead of sending data down telegraph wires, Bidwell created a fax machine powered by selenium cells and then connected the device to a telephone wire. In 1881, his work was published in Nature, where it was called “Tele-Photography.”

Edouard Belin: Swiss inventor Edouard Belin created something called the Belinographe. The Belinographe sent images over both telephone and telegraph wires. Its major innovation was in the way it scanned images for transmission. Just like today’s fax machines, the Belinographe scanned the image and recorded the intensity of light point-by-point. Since information could travel via both telephone and telegraph networks, the Belinographe was able to reach distant geographic locations in short periods of time.

Elisha Gray: Elisha Gray created the teleautograph. As you may have guessed from the name, the teleautograph was a revolutionary device for autographs and signatures. Instead of having to mail important documents back and forth, businessmen and politicians were able to send verified signatures via teleautograph. This made the world a significantly smaller place for banking, big business, politics, and other industries. Amazingly, the original company behind the teleautograph, Teleautograph Corporation, survived until 1999 when it was bought out by Xerox. Of course, the teleautograph did more than just transmit signatures. Anyone could sit down at one machine, scribble a signature or image onto a piece of paper, and have that image appear in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, or other cities across America.

Richard H. Ranger: The other names in this section made great technological strides forward for the industry. However, it was Richard H. Ranger who truly introduced the fax machine to the public. Ranger was an American electrical engineer most famous for transmitting the first photograph across the ocean using radio technology. His transmission device was called the wireless photoradiogram. His work was similar to the work of Arthur Korn, who had previously transmitted an image of the Pope from Italy to Maine.

Rudolf Hell and The Hellschreiber

The Hellschreiber sounds like a deadly weapon a Bond villain would use. It’s not. Instead, Hellschreiber simply means “light pen” in German and was an early forerunner to today’s fax machines.

The Hellschreiber was invented by Rudolf Hell in the 1920s and 1930s. Obviously, the 1920s and 1930s were a unique period in German history, and Adolf Hitler’s regime would end up using the Hellschreiber to communicate with troops during World War II. It played a role in the infamous Enigma encryption system, for example, and helped spread Nazi propaganda across Europe.

After the war, the Hellschreiber was used for much more innocent purposes. It was popular with press release and newswire agencies, for example. It remained in use until the 1980s by radio operators and various media agencies.

The Hellschreiber’s major innovation was describing pages of text using a series of pixels. A 7×7 grid would represent one letter of the alphabet, and an electronic reader would translate all of the letters on a page of text into binary data that could be passed down phone lines.

Radio Fax

Radiofax was the first major invention which saw the word “facsimile” shortened to “fax”. Radiofax was created in the 1950s and relied on the image transmission technology created by Richard Ranger and Arthur Korn.

Radiofax machines are still in popular use today. They’re used to broadcast weather information and maritime charts around the world. When the technology was first invented in the 1950s, it used landlines to spread weather charts across the United States. As the technology expanded internationally, it relied on HF radio.

Today, Radiofax can be known by two interchangeable names: HF Fax and Weatherfax. No matter what you call it, this technology made international shipping and maritime travel safer while also instantly sharing weather data around the world.

Color Fax

Herbert E. Ives was an American scientist who accomplished many great things in life – he performed an experiment which confirmed Einstein’s theory of special relativity’s time dilation, for example, and played a key role in the American optical field.

Faxing was just one of his many passions. In 1942, he transmitted the world’s first color fax. The technology would eventually play a key role in early television broadcasts.

We can thank Ives for both the color fax and, indirectly, color television. He was a visionary in the world of communications.

Xerox Creates The World’s First Commercial Fax Machine

All of the inventors listed above paved the way for Xerox to make a lot of money in the faxing industry. The world’s most well-known faxing company created something called Long Distance Xerograph, or LDX, in 1964.

LDX was remarkably similar to today’s fax machines. In six minutes, LDX could transmit an average-sized document anywhere in the world via phone lines.

Industrialized nations like America, Japan, and Germany quickly adopted this technology. While the first LDX machines were incredibly large by today’s standards, Xerox continued to tweak the design until achieving the average-sized units we see today.

Worldwide Standards In Faxing Technology

Throughout history, the legal world has constantly played ‘catch up’ with the world of technology. This also took place in the faxing industry. It wasn’t until 1980 when something called the ITU G3 Facsimile Standard was created by a Japanese telecommunications giant.

Despite the boring-sounding name, the ITU G3 Facsimile Standard was actually a major breakthrough in the world of technology. Different regions in the world use different standards for many tech devices – some regions use CDMA or GSM for mobile devices, for example, while other regions use 110V electricity instead of 220V.

The fax industry, on the other hand, adopted a single worldwide standard. There was no reason why a fax machine produced in Japan would not be able to communicate with a fax machine produced in South Africa.

That standard encouraged new fax machine companies to enter the market and led to widespread adoption of fax machines across the world. In the 1980s, fax machines were absolutely vital to international and domestic businesses in every country on the planet.

Faxing Versus The Internet

In the 1980s, the internet was just a dim light on the horizon. It was growing more and more popular, but it still faced limited coverage and use. That’s why the fax machine remained the most popular communications tool for long distances.

As we all know, this disparity wouldn’t last long. As the internet became more popular, fax machine use declined. There were still plenty of good reasons to use a fax machine, but email became the best way to send a quick message from one end of the planet to another.

Foreseeing the rise of computers and the internet, Xerox began to include Ethernet on their fax machines in the 1980s, while computer manufacturers like GammaFax created dual-purpose fax machines and desktop computers.

The late 1990s and early 2000s were the end of faxing’s heyday. However, early faxing inventors have influenced our world in a considerable number of ways. They played a role in getting color television into every home, for example, and paved the way for multiple types of mass communications technology. From radio to television to electronic signature technology, we can thank the fax machine and its inventors for a lot of things we take for granted.

What Does The Future Hold For Fax Machines?

Some people say the future looks grim for fax machines. How can fax machines compete in a world with email and cloud storage?

Fax machines aren’t as popular as they used to be. However, that doesn’t mean they’re ready to disappear. Faxes continue to play a key role in the legal industry, where faxed signatures are often worth more than signatures that have been digitally transferred.

Last Update: August 9th, 2021

A short form of the word facsimile, Fax has evolved through a number of versions to be a definition of an image (often an image of a document) sent over a phone network.

While the technology peaked in use from the late 1980s to the mid 2000’s, the ability to send an image over a wire predates Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone (technology similar to fax was in place in Europe around the time the US Civil War was ending), and is still heavily used into the world of the internet.

Table of Contents

• The First Faxes – Sending an Image over a Wire
• First Commercial Use of Facsimile Technology
• Rise of Fax Technology
• Fax Goes Wireless, Color, and 3D
• Telephone Transmission of Facsimile
• The Emergence of a True Worldwide Standard
• Rise of Computer Based Fax
• Decline of the Machine and Rise of Online Services
• More Resources on the History of Fax
• More History of Fax Resources from Fax Authority

The First Faxes – Sending an Image Over a Wire

Alexander Bain is credited with inventing the first technology to send an image over a wire.

Working on an experimental fax machine between 1843 and 1846, he was able to synchronize the movement of two pendulums through a clock, and with that motion scan a message on a line by line basis.

The image projected to and from a cylinder. While it was able to transfer an image, it was of quite poor quality.

Bain’s patent, dated May 27, 1843, was for “improvements in producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces, and in electric printing, and signal telegraphs.”

Frederick Bakewell is credited with improving on Bain’s invention, creating the image telegraph that was very similar to today’s fax machine.

Bakewell replaced Bain’s pendulums with rotating cylinders that were synchronized, allowing for a clearer image through better synchronization. The image telegraph would pick up the image from the cylinder with a stylus, and place the image on the other cylinder through a similar stylus onto chemically impregnated paper.

Bakewell’s image telegraph was never considered a full “success” however it was a first important step towards a commercially viable way to send images over a wire.

First Commercial Use of Facsimile Technology

Credited with the first widely used invention similar to a fax would be Giovanni Caselli and his Pantelegraph.

A combination of “pantograph” (a machine used to copy drawings and words) and “telegraph” (a system for transmitting messages over long distance wires), the Pantelegraph was the first invention that became more widely used for image transmission.

A major difference of Caselli’s Pantelegraph, when compared with Bain and Bakewell’s inventions, was that it used a regulating clock to keep the sending and receiving mechanisms working together. The biggest issue in image transmission was how to synchronize two machines in different locations.

Financed by Leopold II, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Caselli was later introduced to Napoleon II, and later further developed with help from French Inventor Leon Foucault.

With a successful demonstration in front of Napolean in 1860, the Pantelegraph started operation between Paris and Lyon in 1865 and extended to Marseille in 1867. For comparison with telephone, it was not until 1876 that Alexander Graham Bell received his patent for the telephone.

Rise of Fax Technology

Through a number inventions in the late 1800s and early 1900s, different methods that were an improvement of Caselli’s technology emerged.

Shelford Bidwell is credited with using selenium cells connected to a telephone to send an image to a rotating cylinder. Bidwell called the results “Tele-Photography” as quoted in Nature’s 1881 edition and later was able to relatively accurately estimate the bandwidth and circuitry needed to send and receive images.

Edouard Belin is credited with the invention of the Bélinographe – an invention that was able to measure the intensity of light, impressing the image onto photographic paper. This technology was quite similar to modern photocopiers that use a CCC and laser technology to imprint an image. This invention was capable of sending photographs to remote locations across telephone and telegraph networks already in existence.

The Telautograph emerged as a way of sending signatures across distances. Signatures have always been a way of verifying ownership of a bank account and other identification, and the telautograph was built to solve the problem of signatures and distance. Telautographs existed up until more recent times, with the Telautograph Corporation being acquired by a number of companies up to it was purchased by Xerox in 1999.

Fax Goes Wireless, Color, and 3D

Through the early parts of the 20th century, fax saw a number of twists and turns in its capabilities.

Emerging as one of the quickest ways to send an image over a wire, that capability moved to wireless with Richard H. Ranger sending a picture of President Calvin Coolidge from New York to London in 1924 through his Photoradiogram.

This was to some extent an extension of Arthur Korn’s technology that enabled a picture of Pope Pius XI to be sent from Rome, Italy to Bar Harbor, Maine in 1923, which was soon after adopted by the German police to transmit images of fingerprints across the country.

This invention turned into Radiofax (also known as Weatherfax or HF Fax), a method for sending a fax over a radio signal. Today, this system is still used for the transmission of maritime weather maps, and other similar functions.

The fax was also transferred over to HAM radio, with Rudolf Hell’s invention of the Hellschreiber, a method of transmitting data over long distance radio.

The 20th century also saw the invention of the Color Facsimile, as invented by Herbert E. Ives (who later became one of the more popular theorists in trying to counter Einstein’s Theory of Relativity).

In the early 21st century, 3D Fax became a method of scanning and transmitting 3-dimensional data. This project has come to be known as the Michelangelo Project, being used to scan 3d images of Michelangelo’s David and other historical pieces of art.

3D Fax was also a term given to infoimaging’s method of sending binary files (such as computer programs) over a fax machine.

Telephone Transmission of Facsimile

In 1964 Xerox Corporation introduced LDX (Long Distance Xerography), an invention that is considered the first “commercial” version of today’s fax machine.

Xerox’s 1966 Magnafax Telecopier could be connected to any telephone line and could transmit a letter-sized document in six minutes.

Japan became a leader in technological innovation in the fax market, bringing some compact inventions to the market. As competition in the market evolved, fax machines became smaller and quicker.

The Emergence of a True Worldwide Standard

It was in 1980 that the ITU G3 Facsimile Standard was developed, primarily by Japan’s domestic telephone company NTT and overseas telephone company KDDI.

This standard helped lead to a surge in fax technology, both as a national and international form of communication.

Through history, many technological advances have evolved in their own markets under their own systems that later on become difficult to connect and integrate. For example, electricity evolved in some markets as 110v, others as 220v. Telephones had their own “standards” across different regions. Cellular phone technology evolved in the same markets, but with technological differences between CDMA and GSM based systems.

Fax standards, however, have risen to the same standard through their history, making fax one of the first truly “universal” methods of communication.

Rise of the Computer-Based Fax

It was in 1985 that GammaLink introduced the first computer-based fax board, the GammaFax.

While the first boards were problematic in some instances, as documented by one 3rd part user FAQ, the GammaFax was a major was a major advancement, as it brought computers into the worldwide network of fax machines, which at the time was much more wide-ranging than the internet was.

While computer-based faxing led to activities such as broadcast faxing and massive junk faxes, it also brought the ability to manage and manipulate faxes to the smaller scale.

GammaLink was acquired by some different companies over the years, and today exists as Dialogic.

The 1980s also saw a rise of Xerox integrating Ethernet into some of their fax machines, adding it as a feature on their 8000 workstations in the 1980s.

Decline of the Machine and Rise of Online Services

As technology advances, each invention is eventually replaced with a newer, quicker, more secure option. The first decade of the 21st century has seen a major growth of the functions of the internet replacing the “everyday” fax machine.

While there are still many functions best accomplished by fax compared with the internet based equivalent, the business world has seen a major decline in the volume of fax transmissions, as volume moves to other internet based methods.

As fax still maintains a special function in a large number of businesses, there has been a rise of online fax services, built to merge the functions of fax with the convenience of the internet.

Online faxing has brought fax to level where it is accessible through the internet – accessible through email and web-based interfaces – as opposed to only hardware (and phone line based) fax machines.

More Resources on the History of Fax

• Wikipedia – Fax – History
• About.com – History of the Fax Machine and Alexander Bain
• How Stuff Works – History of the Fax Machine
• Secret Life of Machines – The Secret Life of the Fax Machine

More on the History of Fax from Fax Authority:

• The History of Fax — From Alexander Bain’s 1843 invention to today’s internet based fax systems (and everything in between)
• Alexander Bain — Developed an Experimental Fax Machine between 1843 and 1846
• Arthur Korn — Developed Fax Machine for Transmitting Photographs
• Edouard Belin — Inventor of the Bélinographe
• Frederick Bakewell — Improved Bain’s Facsimile Machine
• Giovanni Caselli — Inventor of the Pantelegraph. Sent images 800km across telegraph wires 9 years before Alexander Graham Bell’s Telephone Patent
• Herbert E. Ives — Sent first color fax
• Richard H. Ranger — Invented first Transatlantic Radio Fax
• Rudolf Hell — Invented the Hellschreiber
• Shelford Bidwell — Research in the field of «Telephotography»
• Pantelegraph — An early fax invention used to transmit images over telegraph lines
• Fultograph — An early fax invention used to transmit images over radio waves»
• Telautograph — An early fax invention used to transmit signatures over long distances
• 3D Fax — A 1990s technique used to send computer code over a fax machine. Each page could hold about 50kb of information
• Radiofax — Still used today, a method for transmitting images over long distances through radio. Also known as HF Fax or Weatherfax

Fax

The
word «fax» comes from the word «facsimile». A fax
machine will send a duplicate of the message, document, design or
photo that is fed into it.

Faxing
is a means of telecommunication that has developed very quickly over
the past few years. There are various models of fax machines which
connect to a telephone socket and which work on a system similar to
the telephone system.

Charges
are measured in telephone units and therefore vary according to the
time of day and where the fax is being sent. The advantages of fax
include instant reception of documents and documentary evidence of
what has been transferred. A document can be relayed from one source
to hundreds of other receivers, for example, if the head office of a
chain store wants to circulate a memo or report to its branches.

2. Complete the dialogue

A: Where does the word «fax»
come from?

B:

A: What can a fax machine do?

B:

A: When did this means of
communication develop?

B:

A: How does it function?

B:

A: And how are charges
measured?

B:

A: What are the advantages of
fax?

B:
…..

3. Read and translate the text. Write out the unknown words The Telex

The
mobile telephone, fast train and air travel have cut the problem of
distance for today’s business executives. However, where the
addressee cannot be reached by telephone, the fax and the telex
messages may still prove valuable. Generally speaking, telex machines
are now used only where there is a need for a legal proof and when a
fax message is unacceptable.

The
telex is a machine like a typewriter, but with a dial on its casing.
A message can be sent by dialing the receiver’s number, by dialing
and using the keyboard for some countries, or by asking the operator
to connect you.

The
telex has all the advantages of sending a cable and in addition it
operates in the office and offers a direct line. It is available
twenty-four hours a day, and can send cables as well as telex
messages.

Operating
the telex: once the telex operator has dialed the code, an answerback
code will appear on the teleprinter indicating that the sender is
through. If the wrong code appears, the sender dials again. The
message is typed, as with a normal typewriter, and appears on the
receiver’s machine.

Corrections
are made by typing five X’s: WE ARE SEDXXXXXSENDING ORDER.

Each
telex message is finished with + sign, if the end is not clear; + +
sign is used after the last message; + ? sign at the end of a message
means either “reply, confirm” or “A further message will be
sent”.

Telexes
have their own language. Some words are left out altogether, e.g.
articles, prepositions, pronouns “I”, “you”, auxiliary verbs
“to be”, “to have”, “will”. Instead of “I’ll write
soon” it is written “WRITING SOON” or “LETTER FOLLOWS”;
instead of “Please will you write soon” –“PLEASE WRITE SOON”.

Telex
charges depend on the time it takes to send the message, so telex
operators have developed their own abbreviations:

ASAP, SOONEST – as soon as
possible

ATTN – attention

CFM – confirm, I confirm

EEE – error

ETA – estimate time of
arrival

EXT – extension

FIN — I have finished my
message now

FR – from

L/C – letter of credit

MGR – manager

MOM – waits, waiting

PLS, SVP – please

RAP – I shall call you back

RECALL – call me back

RODS – regards

THRU – through

THKS – thanks

TLX – telex

U – you

W – words

X – error

Figures
and symbols should be written in words, e.g.: FIFTY DOLLARS for
$50.00; AT for @; PER CENT for %.

The
word “telex” can be used as a noun, a verb and a participle,
e.g.: “Please telex as soon as possible” or “We received a
telexed reply”.

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Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device. The original document is scanned with a fax machine (or a telecopier), which processes the contents (text or images) as a single fixed graphic image, converting it into a bitmap, and then transmitting it through the telephone system in the form of audio-frequency tones. The receiving fax machine interprets the tones and reconstructs the image, printing a paper copy.^[1] Early systems used direct conversions of image darkness to audio tone in a continuous or analog manner. Since the 1980s, most machines transmit an audio-encoded digital representation of the page, using data compression to more quickly transmit areas that are all-white or all-black.

Fax machines were ubiquitous in offices in the 1980s and 1990s, but have gradually been rendered obsolete by Internet-based technologies such as email and the World Wide Web. They remain particularly popular in medical administration and law enforcement.^[2]

History[edit]

Wire transmission[edit]

Scottish inventor Alexander Bain worked on chemical-mechanical fax-type devices and in 1846 was able to reproduce graphic signs in laboratory experiments. He received British patent 9745 on May 27, 1843, for his «Electric Printing Telegraph».^[3][4][5] Frederick Bakewell made several improvements on Bain’s design and demonstrated a telefax machine.^[6][7][8] The Pantelegraph was invented by the Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli.^[9] He introduced the first commercial telefax service between Paris and Lyon in 1865, some 11 years before the invention of the telephone.^[10][11]

In 1880, English inventor Shelford Bidwell constructed the scanning phototelegraph that was the first telefax machine to scan any two-dimensional original, not requiring manual plotting or drawing.^[12] An account of Henry Sutton’s «telephane» was published in 1896. Around 1900, German physicist Arthur Korn invented the Bildtelegraph, widespread in continental Europe especially following a widely noticed transmission of a wanted-person photograph from Paris to London in 1908,^[13] used until the wider distribution of the radiofax.^[14][15][16] Its main competitors were the Bélinographe by Édouard Belin first, then since the 1930s the Hellschreiber, invented in 1929 by German inventor Rudolf Hell, a pioneer in mechanical image scanning and transmission.^{[citation needed]}

The 1888 invention of the telautograph by Elisha Gray marked a further development in fax technology, allowing users to send signatures over long distances, thus allowing the verification of identification or ownership over long distances.^[17][18][19]

On May 19, 1924, scientists of the AT&T Corporation «by a new process of transmitting pictures by electricity» sent 15 photographs by telephone from Cleveland to New York City, such photos being suitable for newspaper reproduction. Previously, photographs had been sent over the radio using this process.^[20]

The Western Union «Deskfax» fax machine, announced in 1948, was a compact machine that fit comfortably on a desktop, using special spark printer paper.^[21]

Wireless transmission[edit]

As a designer for the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), in 1924, Richard H. Ranger invented the wireless photoradiogram, or transoceanic radio facsimile, the forerunner of today’s «fax» machines. A photograph of President Calvin Coolidge sent from New York to London on November 29, 1924, became the first photo picture reproduced by transoceanic radio facsimile. Commercial use of Ranger’s product began two years later. Also in 1924, Herbert E. Ives of AT&T transmitted and reconstructed the first color facsimile, a natural-color photograph of silent film star Rudolph Valentino in period costume, using red, green and blue color separations.^[22]

Beginning in the late 1930s, the Finch Facsimile system was used to transmit a «radio newspaper» to private homes via commercial AM radio stations and ordinary radio receivers equipped with Finch’s printer, which used thermal paper. Sensing a new and potentially golden opportunity, competitors soon entered the field, but the printer and special paper were expensive luxuries, AM radio transmission was very slow and vulnerable to static, and the newspaper was too small. After more than ten years of repeated attempts by Finch and others to establish such a service as a viable business, the public, apparently quite content with its cheaper and much more substantial home-delivered daily newspapers, and with conventional spoken radio bulletins to provide any «hot» news, still showed only a passing curiosity about the new medium.^[23]

By the late 1940s, radiofax receivers were sufficiently miniaturized to be fitted beneath the dashboard of Western Union’s «Telecar» telegram delivery vehicles.^[21]

In the 1960s, the United States Army transmitted the first photograph via satellite facsimile to Puerto Rico from the Deal Test Site using the Courier satellite.

Radio fax is still in limited use today for transmitting weather charts and information to ships at sea. The closely related technology of slow-scan television is still used by amateur radio operators.

Telephone transmission[edit]

In 1964, Xerox Corporation introduced (and patented) what many consider to be the first commercialized version of the modern fax machine, under the name (LDX) or Long Distance Xerography. This model was superseded two years later with a unit that would truly set the standard for fax machines for years to come. Up until this point facsimile machines were very expensive and hard to operate. In 1966, Xerox released the Magnafax Telecopiers, a smaller, 46 lb (21 kg) facsimile machine. This unit was far easier to operate and could be connected to any standard telephone line. This machine was capable of transmitting a letter-sized document in about six minutes. The first sub-minute, digital fax machine was developed by Dacom, which built on digital data compression technology originally developed at Lockheed for satellite communication.^[24][25]

By the late 1970s, many companies around the world (especially Japanese firms) had entered the fax market. Very shortly after this, a new wave of more compact, faster and efficient fax machines would hit the market. Xerox continued to refine the fax machine for years after their ground-breaking first machine. In later years it would be combined with copier equipment to create the hybrid machines we have today that copy, scan and fax. Some of the lesser known capabilities of the Xerox fax technologies included their Ethernet enabled Fax Services on their 8000 workstations in the early 1980s.

Prior to the introduction of the ubiquitous fax machine, one of the first being the Exxon Qwip^[26] in the mid-1970s, facsimile machines worked by optical scanning of a document or drawing spinning on a drum. The reflected light, varying in intensity according to the light and dark areas of the document, was focused on a photocell so that the current in a circuit varied with the amount of light. This current was used to control a tone generator (a modulator), the current determining the frequency of the tone produced. This audio tone was then transmitted using an acoustic coupler (a speaker, in this case) attached to the microphone of a common telephone handset. At the receiving end, a handset’s speaker was attached to an acoustic coupler (a microphone), and a demodulator converted the varying tone into a variable current that controlled the mechanical movement of a pen or pencil to reproduce the image on a blank sheet of paper on an identical drum rotating at the same rate.

Computer facsimile interface[edit]

In 1985, Hank Magnuski, founder of GammaLink, produced the first computer fax board, called GammaFax. Such boards could provide voice telephony via Analog Expansion Bus.^[27]

In the 21st century[edit]

Although businesses usually maintain some kind of fax capability, the technology has faced increasing competition from Internet-based alternatives. In some countries^[which?], because electronic signatures on contracts are not yet recognized by law, while faxed contracts with copies of signatures are, fax machines enjoy continuing support in business.^[29] In Japan, faxes are still used extensively as of September 2020 for cultural and graphemic reasons.^{[30][31][32][33]} They are available for sending to both domestic and international recipients from over 81% of all convenience stores nationwide. Convenience-store fax machines commonly print the slightly re-sized content of the sent fax in the electronic confirmation-slip, in A4 paper size.^[34][35][36] Use of fax machines for reporting cases during the COVID-19 pandemic has been criticised in Japan for introducing data errors and delays in reporting, slowing response efforts to contain the spread of infections and hindering the transition to remote work.^[37][38][39]

In many corporate environments, freestanding fax machines have been replaced by fax servers and other computerized systems capable of receiving and storing incoming faxes electronically, and then routing them to users on paper or via an email (which may be secured).^[40] Such systems have the advantage of reducing costs by eliminating unnecessary printouts and reducing the number of inbound analog phone lines needed by an office.

The once ubiquitous fax machine has also begun to disappear from the small office and home office environments.^{[citation needed]} Remotely hosted fax-server services are widely available from VoIP and e-mail providers allowing users to send and receive faxes using their existing e-mail accounts without the need for any hardware or dedicated fax lines. Personal computers have also long been able to handle incoming and outgoing faxes using analog modems or ISDN, eliminating the need for a stand-alone fax machine. These solutions are often ideally suited for users who only very occasionally need to use fax services. In July 2017 the United Kingdom’s National Health Service was said to be the world’s largest purchaser of fax machines because the digital revolution has largely bypassed it.^[41] In June 2018 the Labour Party said that the NHS had at least 11,620 fax machines in operation^[42] and in December the Department of Health and Social Care said that no more fax machines could be bought from 2019 and that the existing ones must be replaced by secure email by March 31, 2020.^[43]

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, generally viewed as digitally advanced in the NHS, was engaged in a process of removing its fax machines in early 2019. This involved quite a lot of e-fax solutions because of the need to communicate with pharmacies and nursing homes which may not have access to the NHS email system and may need something in their paper records.^[44]

In 2018 two-thirds of Canadian doctors reported that they primarily used fax machines to communicate with other doctors. Faxes are still seen as safer and more secure and electronic systems are often unable to communicate with each other.^[45]

Hospitals are the leading users for fax machines in the United States where almost all doctors prefer fax machines over emails, often due to concerns about accidentally violating HIPAA.^[46] However, fax machines are beginning to decline due to expansion of telehealth as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and virtual visits often replace the need for a patient to fax or mail information to a doctor, since the doctor would receive the information via a telehealth platform such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams.

Capabilities[edit]

There are several indicators of fax capabilities: group, class, data transmission rate, and conformance with ITU-T (formerly CCITT) recommendations. Since the 1968 Carterphone decision, most fax machines have been designed to connect to standard PSTN lines and telephone numbers.

Group[edit]

Analog[edit]

Group 1 and 2 faxes are sent in the same manner as a frame of analog television, with each scanned line transmitted as a continuous analog signal. Horizontal resolution depended upon the quality of the scanner, transmission line, and the printer. Analog fax machines are obsolete and no longer manufactured. ITU-T Recommendations T.2 and T.3 were withdrawn as obsolete in July 1996.

• Group 1 faxes conform to the ITU-T Recommendation T.2. Group 1 faxes take six minutes to transmit a single page, with a vertical resolution of 96 scan lines per inch. Group 1 fax machines are obsolete and no longer manufactured.
• Group 2 faxes conform to the ITU-T Recommendations T.3 and T.30. Group 2 faxes take three minutes to transmit a single page, with a vertical resolution of 96 scan lines per inch. Group 2 fax machines are almost obsolete, and are no longer manufactured. Group 2 fax machines can interoperate with Group 3 fax machines.

Digital[edit]

A major breakthrough in the development of the modern facsimile system was the result of digital technology, where the analog signal from scanners was digitized and then compressed, resulting in the ability to transmit high rates of data across standard phone lines. The first digital fax machine was the Dacom Rapidfax first sold in late 1960s, which incorporated digital data compression technology developed by Lockheed for transmission of images from satellites.^[24][25]

Group 3 and 4 faxes are digital formats and take advantage of digital compression methods to greatly reduce transmission times.

• Group 3 faxes conform to the ITU-T Recommendations T.30 and T.4. Group 3 faxes take between 6 and 15 seconds to transmit a single page (not including the initial time for the fax machines to handshake and synchronize). The horizontal and vertical resolutions are allowed by the T.4 standard to vary among a set of fixed resolutions:
  • Horizontal: 100 scan lines per inch
    • Vertical: 100 scan lines per inch («Basic»)
  • Horizontal: 200 or 204 scan lines per inch
    • Vertical: 100 or 98 scan lines per inch («Standard»)
    • Vertical: 200 or 196 scan lines per inch («Fine»)
    • Vertical: 400 or 391 (note not 392) scan lines per inch («Superfine»)
  • Horizontal: 300 scan lines per inch
    • Vertical: 300 scan lines per inch
  • Horizontal: 400 or 408 scan lines per inch
    • Vertical: 400 or 391 scan lines per inch («Ultrafine»)
• Group 4 faxes conform to the ITU-T Recommendations T.563, T.503, T.521, T.6, T.62, T.70, T.411 to T.417. They are designed to operate over 64 kbit/s digital ISDN circuits. The allowed resolutions, a superset of those in the T.4 recommendation, are specified in the T.6 recommendation.^[47]

Fax Over IP (FoIP) can transmit and receive pre-digitized documents at near-realtime^[vague] speeds using ITU-T recommendation T.38 to send digitised images over an IP network using JPEG compression. T.38 is designed to work with VoIP services and often supported by analog telephone adapters used by legacy fax machines that need to connect through a VoIP service. Scanned documents are limited to the amount of time the user takes to load the document in a scanner and for the device to process a digital file. The resolution can vary from as little as 150 DPI to 9600 DPI or more. This type of faxing is not related to the e-mail–to–fax service that still uses fax modems at least one way.

Class[edit]

Computer modems are often designated by a particular fax class, which indicates how much processing is offloaded from the computer’s CPU to the fax modem.

• Class 1 (also known as Class 1.0) fax devices do fax data transfer, while the T.4/T.6 data compression and T.30 session management are performed by software on a controlling computer. This is described in ITU-T recommendation T.31.^[48]
• What is commonly known as «Class 2» is an unofficial class of fax devices that perform T.30 session management themselves, but the T.4/T.6 data compression is performed by software on a controlling computer. Implementations of this «class» are based on draft versions of the standard that eventually significantly evolved to become Class 2.0.^[49] All implementations of «Class 2» are manufacturer-specific.^[50]
• Class 2.0 is the official ITU-T version of Class 2 and is commonly known as Class 2.0 to differentiate it from many manufacturer-specific implementations of what is commonly known as «Class 2». It uses a different but standardized command set than the various manufacturer-specific implementations of «Class 2». The relevant ITU-T recommendation is T.32.^[50]
• Class 2.1 is an improvement of Class 2.0 that implements faxing over V.34 (33.6 kbit/s), which boosts faxing speed from fax classes «2» and 2.0, which are limited to 14.4 kbit/s.^[50] The relevant ITU-T recommendation is T.32 Amendment 1.^[50] Class 2.1 fax devices are referred to as «super G3».

Data transmission rate[edit]

Several different telephone-line modulation techniques are used by fax machines. They are negotiated during the fax-modem handshake, and the fax devices will use the highest data rate that both fax devices support, usually a minimum of 14.4 kbit/s for Group 3 fax.

ITU standard	Released date	Data rates (bit/s)	Modulation method
V.27	1988	4800, 2400	PSK
V.29	1988	9600, 7200, 4800	QAM
V.17	1991	14400, 12000, 9600, 7200	TCM
V.34	1994	28800	QAM
V.34bis	1998	33600	QAM
ISDN	1986	64000	digital

Note that «Super Group 3» faxes use V.34bis modulation that allows a data rate of up to 33.6 kbit/s.

Compression[edit]

As well as specifying the resolution (and allowable physical size) of the image being faxed, the ITU-T T.4 recommendation specifies two compression methods for decreasing the amount of data that needs to be transmitted between the fax machines to transfer the image. The two methods defined in T.4 are:^[51]

• Modified Huffman (MH).
• Modified READ (MR) (Relative Element Address Designate^[52]), optional.

An additional method is specified in T.6:^[47]

• Modified Modified READ (MMR).

Later, other compression techniques were added as options to ITU-T recommendation T.30, such as the more efficient JBIG (T.82, T.85) for bi-level content, and JPEG (T.81), T.43, MRC (T.44), and T.45 for grayscale, palette, and colour content.^[53] Fax machines can negotiate at the start of the T.30 session to use the best technique implemented on both sides.

Modified Huffman[edit]

Modified Huffman (MH), specified in T.4 as the one-dimensional coding scheme, is a codebook-based run-length encoding scheme optimised to efficiently compress whitespace.^[51] As most faxes consist mostly of white space, this minimises the transmission time of most faxes. Each line scanned is compressed independently of its predecessor and successor.^[51]

Modified READ[edit]

Modified READ, specified as an optional two-dimensional coding scheme in T.4, encodes the first scanned line using MH.^[51] The next line is compared to the first, the differences determined, and then the differences are encoded and transmitted.^[51] This is effective, as most lines differ little from their predecessor. This is not continued to the end of the fax transmission, but only for a limited number of lines until the process is reset, and a new «first line» encoded with MH is produced. This limited number of lines is to prevent errors propagating throughout the whole fax, as the standard does not provide for error correction. This is an optional facility, and some fax machines do not use MR in order to minimise the amount of computation required by the machine. The limited number of lines is 2 for «Standard»-resolution faxes, and 4 for «Fine»-resolution faxes.

Modified Modified READ[edit]

The ITU-T T.6 recommendation adds a further compression type of Modified Modified READ (MMR), which simply allows a greater number of lines to be coded by MR than in T.4.^[47] This is because T.6 makes the assumption that the transmission is over a circuit with a low number of line errors, such as digital ISDN. In this case, the number of lines for which the differences are encoded is not limited.

JBIG[edit]

In 1999, ITU-T recommendation T.30 added JBIG (ITU-T T.82) as another lossless bi-level compression algorithm, or more precisely a «fax profile» subset of JBIG (ITU-T T.85). JBIG-compressed pages result in 20% to 50% faster transmission than MMR-compressed pages, and up to 30 times faster transmission if the page includes halftone images.

JBIG performs adaptive compression, that is, both the encoder and decoder collect statistical information about the transmitted image from the pixels transmitted so far, in order to predict the probability for each next pixel being either black or white. For each new pixel, JBIG looks at ten nearby, previously transmitted pixels. It counts, how often in the past the next pixel has been black or white in the same neighborhood, and estimates from that the probability distribution of the next pixel. This is fed into an arithmetic coder, which adds only a small fraction of a bit to the output sequence if the more probable pixel is then encountered.

The ITU-T T.85 «fax profile» constrains some optional features of the full JBIG standard, such that codecs do not have to keep data about more than the last three pixel rows of an image in memory at any time. This allows the streaming of «endless» images, where the height of the image may not be known until the last row is transmitted.

ITU-T T.30 allows fax machines to negotiate one of two options of the T.85 «fax profile»:

• In «basic mode», the JBIG encoder must split the image into horizontal stripes of 128 lines (parameter L0 = 128) and restart the arithmetic encoder for each stripe.
• In «option mode», there is no such constraint.

Matsushita Whiteline Skip[edit]

A proprietary compression scheme employed on Panasonic fax machines is Matsushita Whiteline Skip (MWS). It can be overlaid on the other compression schemes, but is operative only when two Panasonic machines are communicating with one another. This system detects the blank scanned areas between lines of text, and then compresses several blank scan lines into the data space of a single character. (JBIG implements a similar technique called «typical prediction», if header flag TPBON is set to 1.)

Typical characteristics[edit]

Group 3 fax machines transfer one or a few printed or handwritten pages per minute in black-and-white (bitonal) at a resolution of 204×98 (normal) or 204×196 (fine) dots per square inch. The transfer rate is 14.4 kbit/s or higher for modems and some fax machines, but fax machines support speeds beginning with 2400 bit/s and typically operate at 9600 bit/s. The transferred image formats are called ITU-T (formerly CCITT) fax group 3 or 4. Group 3 faxes have the suffix .g3 and the MIME type image/g3fax.

The most basic fax mode transfers in black and white only. The original page is scanned in a resolution of 1728 pixels/line and 1145 lines/page (for A4). The resulting raw data is compressed using a modified Huffman code optimized for written text, achieving average compression factors of around 20. Typically a page needs 10 s for transmission, instead of about 3 minutes for the same uncompressed raw data of 1728×1145 bits at a speed of 9600 bit/s. The compression method uses a Huffman codebook for run lengths of black and white runs in a single scanned line, and it can also use the fact that two adjacent scanlines are usually quite similar, saving bandwidth by encoding only the differences.

Fax classes denote the way fax programs interact with fax hardware. Available classes include Class 1, Class 2, Class 2.0 and 2.1, and Intel CAS. Many modems support at least class 1 and often either Class 2 or Class 2.0. Which is preferable to use depends on factors such as hardware, software, modem firmware, and expected use.

Printing process[edit]

Fax machines from the 1970s to the 1990s often used direct thermal printers with rolls of thermal paper as their printing technology, but since the mid-1990s there has been a transition towards plain-paper faxes: thermal transfer printers, inkjet printers and laser printers.

One of the advantages of inkjet printing is that inkjets can affordably print in color; therefore, many of the inkjet-based fax machines claim to have color fax capability. There is a standard called ITU-T30e (formally ITU-T Recommendation T.30 Annex E ^[54]) for faxing in color; however, it is not widely supported, so many of the color fax machines can only fax in color to machines from the same manufacturer.^{[citation needed]}

Stroke speed[edit]

Stroke speed in facsimile systems is the rate at which a fixed line perpendicular to the direction of scanning is crossed in one direction by a scanning or recording spot. Stroke speed is usually expressed as a number of strokes per minute. When the fax system scans in both directions, the stroke speed is twice this number. In most conventional 20th century mechanical systems, the stroke speed is equivalent to drum speed.^[55]

Fax paper[edit]

As a precaution, thermal fax paper is typically not accepted in archives or as documentary evidence in some courts of law unless photocopied. This is because the image-forming coating is eradicable and brittle, and it tends to detach from the medium after a long time in storage.^[56]

Internet fax[edit]

One popular alternative is to subscribe to an Internet fax service, allowing users to send and receive faxes from their personal computers using an existing email account. No software, fax server or fax machine is needed. Faxes are received as attached TIFF or PDF files, or in proprietary formats that require the use of the service provider’s software. Faxes can be sent or retrieved from anywhere at any time that a user can get Internet access. Some services offer secure faxing to comply with stringent HIPAA and Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act requirements to keep medical information and financial information private and secure. Utilizing a fax service provider does not require paper, a dedicated fax line, or consumable resources.^[57]

Another alternative to a physical fax machine is to make use of computer software which allows people to send and receive faxes using their own computers, utilizing fax servers and unified messaging. A virtual (email) fax can be printed out and then signed and scanned back to computer before being emailed. Also the sender can attach a digital signature to the document file.

With the surging popularity of mobile phones, virtual fax machines can now be downloaded as applications for Android and iOS. These applications make use of the phone’s internal camera to scan fax documents for upload or they can import from various cloud services.

Related standards[edit]

• T.4 is the umbrella specification for fax. It specifies the standard image sizes, two forms of image-data compression (encoding), the image-data format, and references, T.30 and the various modem standards.
• T.6 specifies a compression scheme that reduces the time required to transmit an image by roughly 50-percent.
• T.30 specifies the procedures that a sending and receiving terminal use to set up a fax call, determine the image size, encoding, and transfer speed, the demarcation between pages, and the termination of the call. T.30 also references the various modem standards.
• V.21, V.27ter, V.29, V.17, V.34: ITU modem standards used in facsimile. The first three were ratified prior to 1980, and were specified in the original T.4 and T.30 standards. V.34 was published for fax in 1994.^[58]
• T.37 The ITU standard for sending a fax-image file via e-mail to the intended recipient of a fax.
• T.38 The ITU standard for sending Fax over IP (FoIP).
• G.711 pass through — this is where the T.30 fax call is carried in a VoIP call encoded as audio. This is sensitive to network packet loss, jitter and clock synchronization. When using voice high-compression encoding techniques such as, but not limited to, G.729, some fax tonal signals may not be correctly transported across the packet network.
• RFC 3362 image/t38 MIME-type
• SSL Fax An emerging standard that allows a telephone based fax session to negotiate a fax transfer over the internet, but only if both sides support the standard. The standard is partially based on T.30 and is being developed by Hylafax+ developers.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Coopersmith, Jonathan, Faxed: The Rise and Fall of the Fax Machine (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) 308 pp.
• «Transmitting Photographs by Telegraph», Scientific American article, 12 May 1877, p. 297

External links[edit]

The dictionary definition of facsimile at Wiktionary
Media related to Fax machines at Wikimedia Commons

• Group 3 Facsimile Communication a ’97 essay with technical details on compression and error codes, and call establishment and release.
• ITU T.30 Recommendation

• Slides: 10

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