History of the Fax Machine

Invented before the telephone, the fax machine went through many changes in its early incarnations. The bulky transmitting and receiving machines were a novelty at first, but began to see usefulness at the turn of the twentieth century. Better image resolution and color soon developed and the costs of machines became more reasonable. International regulation brought the fax machine to new heights at the end of the century, but new technology has begun to offset its importance with the integration of the Internet into daily life.

History

Alexander Bain received the first patent for a facsimile machine in 1843, with an invention based on his electric clock and electric printing telegraph. The facsimile machine used two pendulums synchronized by a clock to scan line-by-line a message and transmit it via a on-off pulse. The message went to a receiving station which used electrochemically sensitive paper to produce the telegraph.
Frederick Bakewell introduced an improved version of the facsimile machine in 1848, replacing the pendulums with rotating cylinders. An image made of insulated ink would be wrapped around cylinder which rotated as a stylus that traced along the image. Each time the metal stylus hit the insulated ink, the current would be interrupted letting the receiving station's electrochemically sensitive paper to produce a duplicate of the image.

Significance

The first commercial fax machines were introduced in 1861, years before the telephone. The Pantelegraph was introduced in Europe and took advantage of lines laid along rail lines. In 1908, a fax was sent from Paris to London of a wanted man's picture caused worldwide attention as the near instantaneous transmission of information was now possible.
RCA introduced the first fax that operated on radio lines using analog signals rather than electric pulses to send information. On November 29, 1924, a picture of President Calvin Coolidge was transmitted from New York to London, ushering in the era of global information exchange. That same year, color faxing was introduced by AT&T.

Considerations

As telephone lines were laid throughout the twentieth century, fax machines became more prevalent. First implemented heavily in military application, the earliest modern fax machines could operate only with like machines from the same companies due to the varying compression techniques used in sending the information.
The U.N. sponsored International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee and later the International Telecommunications Union established regulation on what forms of compression and transmission speeds would be used in fax machines in order to standardize the formats between companies and worldwide. This led to an explosion of fax machine use at home and in the workplace.

Effects

Throughout the late 1970's and 1980's, fax machines became imperative for the proper functioning of businesses. The readily available information exchange helped companies communicate worldwide and on a near instantaneous level. Productivity rose and new technologies arose to assist the speed of faxing. With the introduction of Group 3 and Super Group 3 fax machines, the technology peaked in the early 1990's. As computer technology became integrated into the workplace, the fax machine remained an important part of business into the twenty-first century. It offers a secure transmission that keeps no records, allowing for the safe exchange of information as to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPPA laws.

Function

A modern fax machine is set with specifications for transmission and reception. Each machine must supply the other with information regarding its abilities in order to legally operate. A machine takes an image on the transmitting machine and transfers that information via analog pulses along a telephone wire. The receiving machine formats those pulses into an image to be printed at their end. A break in the phone line or poor weather conditions can have an adverse effect on the fax machine's ability to do its job. For this reason, more modern methods of transmitting information have become prevalent, such as email and fax over IP.