History of FAX, totally OT

[jdow]

From: "Gordon Keehn" <gordonkeehn at netzero.net>

> >    *Fax machines have actually been around since at least the 1800's. A
> >mechanical device which carved wood was set up in two towns in France
> >for some kind of exposition, with just a wire between the two towns. It
> >actually worked, and the idea's been around since then, building slowly
> >through the 1970's when my Dad owned a service for faxing checks between
> >truckstops and transportation companies.  Not a new idea, for a long
> >time.
> >  
> >
>     Those old enough to remember "Dragnet" in the '50s (Jack Webb, Ben 
> Alexander, and they don't make 'em like that anymore!) saw occasional 
> glimpses of a gadget with a sheet of paper wrapped around a rapidly 
> revolving drum, with a solenoid-controlled pen to draw the image.  I 
> don't recall what they called it but as a young teen, I thought it was 
> next thing to magic.

Such a device was still in use in Marine inventories at least through
1995. And based on what I have seen since they are still in use in two
variations. One was strictly an analog fax machine. It's updated cousin
had digital facsimile capability very similar to Group 3 fax except
that it used a different transmission format designed for broadcast
(unidirectional) transmissions through crypto devices if necessary.

Those puppies would print on toilet paper if pressed. (Um, our salesman
made such an observation to a general. So I spent some of my $100/hour
time in 1995 dollars proving the point for him on one of our lab
machines.) The last edition made had an option for true Group-3 fax
or an ability to communicate with a 36" wide dot matrix printer, capture
the data, and transmit it with a slight modification to the military
version of the Group 3 standard. (Then I moved over to working on
Inmarsat-M SatCom.)

Those drum beasties were the only things that could meet the full
military specifications for temperature range, shock, vibration,
grunt's brutality, you name it. Laser printers are too fragile,
Litton's toy not withstanding. Inkjets freeze. The fancy "heat it
up to print a dot" paper fades to black when it gets warm. Good old
ecologically disastrous carbon paper on a drum impact printer works
through it all. And those things can practically survive a tank
rolling over them if there's loam under them.

{^_^}   I wonder how many here knew of this little off to the side
        world of Mil Std 161 facsimile.