In these days, you can find fax machines in almost any office in the United States or anyplace in this world, large or small office, hi tech or low tech office. The primary function of fax machine is it will help you to transmit pieces of paper to someone else immediately!
History of Fax Machine
Fax machine was first invented by a Scottish mechanic, Alexander Bain in 1843 by integrating clock and telegraph technology. After that, Giovanni Caselli created a pantelegraph used by French Post in 1862. In 1902, Arthur Korn discovered a way of transmitting picture through electric wires. Edouard Belin in 1914 established the concept for remote fax photo and news reporting.
In 1924 AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph Company) modernized telephone faximile technology by making a telephotography machine that was used to send political convention photos.
Again by Edouard Belin in 1925, he developed the Belinograph. Then in March 5, 1955 the first radio faximile was delivered across the country. In 1966, Xerox made a fax machine that was smaller and simpler to use which motivate offices to use them. At around 1980′s the fax machines were very common.
How Fax Machine Works
Early fax machine was created by involving a rotating drum. You require to attach a paper to the drum with print facing forward to send a fax. The rest of the fax machine involving image sensor with lens and light. The sensor was attached to an arm and faced the sheet of paper. The the arm can move downward over the sheet of paper from one to the other while the sheet rotated to the drum.
The photo sensor could focus in and view a very small spot on the paper in an area of about 0,01 inches square. The drum then would rotate so that the photo sensor could analyze one line of the paper and then move down a line.
To transmit the information through a phone line early fax machine using a color code that is black and white. If the spot of paper was white the fax system would send one tone, if it were black then it would send different tone. For instance, 800Hz for white and 1.300Hz for black.
At the receiving end, there would be an identical rotating drum, with some sort of pen to mark on the paper. When the receiving fax machine got a 1,300-Hertz tone, it would put the pen to the paper. When it heard an 800-Hertz tone, it would withdraw the pen from the paper.
Today’s fax machine still utilize sensors to read the paper. Most of modern fax machines have paper feed system to send multi pages fax.
Modern technology is applied to fax machines that use photo-diode sensor system, comprising 1,728 sensors that reads an entire line of the paper simultaneously.
There are some different methods of printing the fax on the receiving terminal. The oldest method, mentioned before, is using rolls of thermal paper. Fax machines that use this paper have some major advantages: they’re less costly to make; they have no moving parts, other than the paper-feed mechanism; there is no need of printer ink cartridge or ribbons (the paper contains the ink); and they’re practically indestructible. Other methods involve thermal film (which is more complicated than thermal paper, but less complicated compared to inkjet), inkjet and laser. Also, faxes can be received directly into a computer that has a fax modem, and printed out with whatever printer is attached to the computer.
That’s it, a little bit about fax machine that might help you understand more about the system that is nearly impossible to do business without one these days.