History Of The Fax

It was due to a Scottish inventors dream in 1843 that we have today what is commonly known as the ability to fax, or its full name facsimile. Alexander Bain patented the first ever fax machine and his original concept for the fax is still the basis for the modern machines used today. His original fax transmitter was designed to scan a flat surface using a stylus on a pendulum which picked up images on the surface. Seven years previous Samuel Morse had invented the telegraph and fax evolved from this.

In 1902 Doctor by the name of Arthur Korn invented a much improved and far practical fax, the photoelectrical system and so began the world’s introduction to faxing information. The transmission of drawings, maps and writing could now be sent by electrical signals, it is a complex procedure that involves optical scanning, signal encoding, transmission, decoding and copy making. In a commonly used fax system as refined in 1848 by Fredrick Bakewell and largely based on Alexander Bain’s efforts the subject is wrapped around a drum, a spot of light finely focused falls onto the subject matter and reflected light is picked up by the photo device. The drum will rotate so that the spot of light will trace across the copy examining each pixel. If the subject cannot be wrapped around the drum the flat copy can be scanned using a moving mirror to direct the light. 

In 1914 Edouard Belin came up with the idea of remote fax/news reporting and in 1924 the American telephone and telegraph company (AT & T) began working to improve the telephone facsimile technology and in 1924 the machine was used to send political convention photos over long distance for publication on newspapers. In 1955 the first radio facsimile transmission was sent across the continent. In 1985 the first computer fax board was produced by Dr Hank Magnuski. It was Cannon in 1987 who created the first plain paper fax to save people from having to flatten out there rolled faxes and in the 1996 the first internet compatible fax machine was created and it ran at 33.6kbps.2006 and  Faxing has come along in leaps and bounds since then gaining in popularity but now the fax machine of the past can almost be done away with due to the increasingly popularity of the internet fax services which are now springing up everywhere, not surprisingly due to there efficiency. Gone are the need for toners and endless stocks of paper now sending a fax is as easy as logging onto your email account typing and hitting send, all without the need for moving from your chair.