(This is acutally a later version of a fax machine, an all-in-one by Samsung. I'm talking here about the fax machines that still used the thermal fax paper!)
We’ve
covered the photocopying task, pretty much, so now it’s on to sending faxes.
When the telecopier or fax machine (“fax” is short for “Facsimile”) first came
out, it was pretty revolutionary stuff. How amazing, then, that people could
send copies of documents over phone lines and get stuff that previously had to
be mailed and the whole process would take several days, not minutes.
From
Wikipedia: “By the late 1970s, many companies
around the world (but especially Japan), entered the fax market. Very shortly
after 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. But, in later years it would be combined with
Copier equipment to create the hybrid machines we have today that copy, scan
and fax. . . “
The early fax machines used rolls of thermal
fax paper, brittle stuff that would fade eventually. Wisely, some bosses asked
for copies to be made on regular paper of those thermal fax transmissions.
Normally,
faxing wasn’t at all difficult unless the fax phone # given was wrong, the
machine was jammed, or the instructions on the machine weren’t clear. It seemed
that every fax machine was different, which made things a little more
challenging with each new temp assignment.
At any
rate, faxing documents wasn’t an onerous task. One time, when I worked for an
insurance company, I had to fax a huge binder. I figured it had to be sent in
chunks, and of course, I had to alert the receiving party that this
mega-document was on its way. . .
No comments:
Post a Comment