A New Post

Fax machines have a long history as they were first invented in 1843 by Alexander Bain. The machine worked by synchronizing the motion of two pendulums within a clock and scan over an image and transmit is through a wire to another device. The image that was delivered was very poor quality and in 1850 Frederick Bakewell made improvements and was awarded a patent for a “Copying Telegraph” that delivered a higher quality image. After this, no one made any significant improvements in this area until 1863 when Giovanni Caselli improved the prior machines and their technology came to be the first commercially used fax machine. His machine was called the pantelegraph (pictured below) and was able to transmit images electronically up to 15 cm x 10 cm.

So, it was nothing compared to what we think of as a modern-day fax machine but in its time, it was very helpful to verify signatures for transactions with banks. This technology was used until 1902 when Arthur Korn discovered a way to scan a photograph and transmit it to then have it printed on photographic film. He discovered cells that were sensitive to light and incorporated them in his phototelautograph to transmit images. This device was used by the police to transmit photos and fingerprints of criminals and by newspapers to transmit photos. This device relied on telegraph lines to transmit the information so, as more and more telegraph lines were created the machine was able to transmit the information further and further. In 1924 telephone company AT&T invented the telephotograph and this was used for political campaigns to send the campaign pictures to different newspapers all over the country but since this machine used telegraph lines there was a limited number of places you could send a photo.

Richard H. Ranger discovered a way to transmit the photo over radio waves, widely expanding the possibilities for fax machines. He used this idea and created the photoradiogram which was used to send a photo from New York to London in 1924. Fast forward to 1966 when Xerox released their Magnafax Telecopier (below). Before this release, fax machines were complicated, expensive, and large but this machine was simpler to use and much smaller.

Fax machines reached their peak in 1997 when 3.6 million units were sold in the United States alone. Fax machines were very helpful in transmitting secure information. Many times, they were and still are used to scan a signed document and then either send it to someone else to sign or to the person who requires the signature. It is also use by healthcare workers because it is safer than the internet and email. When delivering private information, the healthcare workers want to keep it safe and fax machines make that possible. I think the idea of sharing documents and information without the internet is a cool concept but when you think about the added benefits, they are slim. After being developed and perfected for over 150 years the fax machine does not provide a service that is worth all of the research and innovation that each of the scientists performed that contributed to the development of the modern-day fax machine. Email has widely overtaken communication that would otherwise be completed via fax because as improvements were made it is very easy to attach a document to an email and print it. Also, for example, when signing the lease for my housing senior year, my friends and I simply pressed and button and typed our name. This possibility to sign documents over the internet makes that use of fax machines obsolete. With that being said, the only major benefit of fax machines is the privacy and security. While there is only one benefit, that benefit is extremely important to some industries and this is why fax machines are still around if you know where to look for them.

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Citations

Borth, David E. “Fax.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 18 Feb. 2020, www.britannica.com/technology/fax.

The Encyclopedia Britannica provides and complete in-depth overview of the history of the development of the fax machine from 1843 until today. This was extremely useful for my essay because it gave me the baseline knowledge necessary for understanding how the fax machine came to be. This is an extremely reputable source because it comes from the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Cummins, Eleanor. “Why Do We Still Have Fax Machines?” Popular Science, Popular Science, 7 June 2019, www.popsci.com/why-fax-machines-still-exist/.

This source gave a brief overview of the history of fax machines, but I mainly used this source to understand what makes fax machines special because I have never used one and didn’t know their purpose in society today. This is probably not the most reputable source however, it was still beneficial for my essay because I just needed a general idea of why fax machines are still used today.

Goran, David. “The Pantelegraph Was the First Machine That Could Transmit Pictures Electronically and Is Considered the Precursor to the Modern Day Fax Machine.” The Vintage News, 17 Mar. 2016, www.thevintagenews.com/2016/03/17/pantelegraph-first-machine-transmit-pictures-electronically-considered-precursor-modern-day-fax-machine/.

This source gave me a very specific understanding of Caselli’s Pantelegraph that the Encyclopedia Britannica was not able to provide. This is a reputable source because it is an article in a history news site that does work for museums and historical societies.

“The History of Fax (from 1843 to Present Day).” Fax Authority, faxauthority.com/fax-history/.

This source was similar to the information given from the Encyclopedia Britannica but there were some pieces of information in each of the sources that the other didn’t have. This is a reputable source because it is a website that is solely about faxes and contains information about different fax machines and the history of faxes.

“Richard H. Ranger Biography - Wireless Photoradiogram Inventor.” Fax Authority, faxauthority.com/biographies/richard-h-ranger/.

This source gave a little bit of specific information about Richard H. Hanger, who invented the Photoradiogram. This is a reputable source because it came from the same fax website as the source above. Enter text in Markdown. Use the toolbar above, or click the ? button for formatting help.