Fax

Fax term.

Fax Panasonic Panafax UF-332 of normal paper.

Fax (abbreviation of facsimile), sometimes telefax or telecopia, is the telephone transmission of material printed scan (both text and images), typically to a phone number connected to a printer or other output device. The original document is scanned with a fax machine, which processes the contents (text or images) as a single still graphic image, turning it into a bitmap, the information is transmitted as electrical signals through of the telephone system. The receiving fax machine reconverts the encoded image, and prints it on paper. Before the triumph of digital technology, for many decades, scanned data was transmitted as an analog signal.

Transmission

Cable Streaming

Scottish inventor Alexander Bain worked on fax-type chemical mechanical devices and in 1846 was able to reproduce graphic signs in laboratory experiments. He first received the fax patent in 1843. Frederick Bakewell made several improvements on Bain's design and created a fax machine. The Alexander Baian fax copy was invented by the Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli. He introduced the first commercial fax service between Paris and Lyon in 1865, some 11 years before the invention of the telephone.

In 1881, English inventor Shelford Bidwell built the scanning phototelegraph, which was the first fax machine capable of scanning any two-dimensional original manually, without requiring tracing or drawing. Around 1900, the German physicist Arthur Korn invented the Bildtelegraph, which was widespread in continental Europe especially, since to transmit the photo of a wanted person from Paris to London in 1908, the most widely distributed radiofax was used.. Its main competitors were the Bélinograf by Édouard Belin first, and then from 1930 the Hellschreiber, invented in 1929 by the German inventor Rudolf Hell, a pioneer in image exploration. mechanics and transmission.

Wireless transmission

As a designer for the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), in 1924, Richard H. Ranger invented the photoradiogram, or transoceanic radiofax, the forerunner of today's fax machines. A photograph of President Calvin Coolidge was sent from New York to London on November 29, 1924, and became the first photo reproduced by transoceanic radio facsimile. Commercial use of the Ranger product began two years later. Radiofax is still in common use today for the transmission of weather charts and information to ships at sea. Also in 1924, Herbert E. Ives of AT&T sent out and reconstructed the first color fax, using color separation. Around, the Finch Facsimile, a highly developed machine, was described in detail in a book, although it was never manufactured in large numbers.

In the 1960s, the United States military transmitted the first satellite facsimile ("fax") photograph to Puerto Rico from the Deal Test Site using the Courier 1B satellite.

Telephone broadcast

Multifunction printer.

1964 was a pivotal year in which the Xerox Corporation introduced (and patented) what many consider to be the first commercialized version of the modern fax machine, under the name long-distance xerography. "en">long distance xerography, LDX). This model was replaced two years later by a unit that truly sets the standard for fax machines for years to come. Until then, fax machines were very expensive and difficult to operate. In 1966, Xerox released the Magnafax Telecopier, a smaller fax machine: 46 pounds or 21 kg. This unit was much easier to operate and could be connected to any standard phone line. This machine was capable of transmitting a letter-size document in about six minutes. The first digital fax machine was developed by Dacom, which is based on digital data compression technology originally developed at the Lockheed Corporation for satellite communication.

In the late 1970s, many companies around the world (but especially in Japan), entered the fax market. Very soon after, a new wave of more compact, faster and more efficient fax machines hit the market. Xerox continued to perfect the fax machine years after its groundbreaking first machine. But, in recent years it would be combined with the all-in-one to create the hybrid machines we have today that copy, scan and fax. Some of the lesser-known capabilities of Xerox's fax technologies include its fax-enabled Ethernet services on its Xerox 8000 workstations in the 1980s.

Before the introduction of the fax machine everywhere, one of the first being the Exxon Qwip in the mid 1970s, fax machines work by optically reading a document or drawing by rotating it on a drum. The reflected light, which varies in intensity depending on the light and dark areas of the document, is sent to a photocell where the current in a circuit varies with the amount of light. This current is used to drive a tone generator (a modulator), the current determines the frequency of the tone produced. This audio tone is then transmitted using an acoustic coupler (a loudspeaker, in this case) connected to the microphone of a common telephone earpiece. At the receiving end, a speaker in the earpiece is connected to an acoustic coupler (a microphone), and a demodulator converts the variable pitch into a variable current that controls the mechanical movement of a pen or pencil to reproduce the image on a sheet of paper. blank on an identical rotating drum at the same speed. A pair of these expensive and bulky machines could only be provided by companies with a great need to communicate drawings, design sketches or signed documents between distant locations, such as an office and the factory.

Fax and computer interface

In 1985, Dr. Ayaz Asmat, founder of GammaLink, created the first fax-capable expansion card, the GammaFax.

Parts of a fax

A fax machine is especially an image scanner, modem, and printer combined into one specialized device. The scanner converts the original document into a digital image; the modem sends the image over the telephone line; on the other side, another modem receives it and sends it to the printer, which makes a copy of the original document.

Early faxes only scanned in black and white, but as technology improved they switched to grayscale; now they are more modern and sophisticated. The advent of multifunction devices brought in the color scanner: although images are still sent in gray, they can be sent to a computer or stored in color on a local hard drive.

Early faxes used thermal printers, which require specific paper. Very few machines used a needle printer, and even fewer used a laser printer. The arrival and, above all, the reduction in cost of inkjet printing caused a boom in plain paper faxes, which in half of the cases also acted as multifunction equipment (from acting only as a printer to or fax/modem of the connected computer, to be able to control any of its parts).

Fax Hewlett-Packard.

A few computers incorporated into their own casing everything necessary to also act as fax machines. Notable among them are the Ericsson Portable PC and the Canon Navigator.

At the other extreme are computers that, through software and their standard peripherals, are capable of emulating a fax, from Group 2 to Group 4 inclusive. Contrary to popular belief, it's not something unique to PCs or the Microsoft Windows operating system. The Amstrad PCW and MSX were already capable of acting in this way in their time, and at the time of popularization of the modem/fax (a type of modem that, in addition to the communication protocols, incorporates Group 2 or higher fax), Programs for PCs (MS-DOS, OS/2, Microsoft Windows, and the various flavors of Unix), Apple Macintosh, Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, and workstations from Sun and SGI performed the same function.

Fax emulator software

A computer with a fax/modem and the appropriate software is capable of emulating the operation of a fax machine. In multitasking operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, the fax transmission reception program is made by emulating a printer that can be printed to from any application. Fax reception always requires a program running in the background "listening" the modem waiting for an incoming call.

Some advantages of using this system are:

• Documents sent and/or received can be stored on the hard drive.
• Documents can be exported to standard graphic formats and sent by email.
• Paper save: documents received are only printed if necessary. Outgoing documents are printed directly from a text editor.

Some fax emulator programs:

• Cheyenne Bitware (DOS and Windows)
• Mighty Fax (Windows)
• Winfax (Windows)
• Hylafax (GNU/Linux et al. Unix)
• [BGFAX] (DOS and Windows)

Fax Groups

The fax became an essential part of the micro or hyper company, but the question was what would be the efficiency of the shipment and the problem of sending between America and Europe, and the time it would take in reaching your destination. To correct this deficiency, the Telecommunication Standardization Sector of the ITU (International Telecommunication Union, ITU) established in 1974 a worldwide standard, known as fax group 1. Since then, 4 standards or groups have been created:

Group 1: Created in 1974, it is based on ITU-T Recommendation T.2. These faxes take four to six minutes to transmit a single page, with a vertical resolution of 98 lines per inch, at a speed of 2400 bps. This type of fax is now obsolete and is no longer manufactured.

Group 2: Created in 1976, it is based on ITU-T Recommendations T.30 and T.3. These faxes take 3 minutes to transmit a single page, with a vertical resolution of 100 lines per inch at a speed of 9,600 bps. Although obsolete and no longer manufactured, these faxes are still used as they are able to communicate with Group 3 faxes.

Group 3: Created in 1980, it is based on ITU-T Recommendations T.30 and T.4. They take between 6 and 15 seconds to transmit a single page (not including the initial time of synchronization and identification of the machines), at a speed of 14,400 bps. The horizontal and vertical resolutions are those of the T.4 standard, with several possible combinations:

• Horizontal: 100 lines per inch
  • Vertical: 100 lines per inch
• Horizontal: 200 or 204 lines per inch
  • Vertical: 100 or 98 lines per inch (Standard)
  • Vertical: 200 or 196 lines per inch (Fine)
  • Vertical: 400 or 391 (no 392) lines per inch (Superfine)
• Horizontal: 300 lines per inch
  • Vertical: 300 lines per inch
• Horizontal: 400 or 408 lines per inch
  • Vertical: 400 or 391 lines per inch

Group 4: Created in 1984, it is based on ITU-T Recommendations T.563, T.503, T.521, T.6, T.61, T.62, T.62 bis, T.70, T.72, T.73 and F.161. It has been designed to operate at more than 64 kbit/s over ISDN digital networks (Integrated Services Digital Network, in English abbreviated as ISDN). Its resolution depends on recommendation T.6, which includes all those of T.4, expanding them. It is capable of receiving faxes from a group 3 or 2 fax, although the communication must go through a bridge between the analog and digital networks.

GSM mobile phones are also capable of sending and receiving faxes. Initially they required a PCMCIA card or an IrDA port to communicate with the computer, but many computers today are capable of receiving and viewing faxes on their own, and even sending an existing document as a fax. The operator may require a special contract to activate these capabilities on their network.

To avoid the costs of long-distance communications, the Internet is also used to transmit the data. If the receiver does not have an Internet connection, it is usually a machine connected to the corresponding telephone network (analogue or ISDN) that is in charge of transmitting the last stretch.

Utility

Initially, the fax machine was used exclusively in journalism; but its efficiency and the desire for modernization made it later integrate into business. The fax is used to send and receive images of all kinds. New technologies such as a hard drive and a halftone player have been later integrated into it, and it was attached to a regular telephone early on. Japan was the largest user of this technology, introducing state-of-the-art technologies to this device. The fax has managed to extend to all current communication technologies.

Although fax usage is currently declining in favor of the Internet and email, many companies still maintain fax services. It is widely used in health, finance and insurance companies (proposals, friendly accident reports, invoices, notes by hand from inspectors and experts...) among others.

The fax is granted legal value. In Spain, 'Correos' it offers fax services and also the burofax service, which is why it is used to formalize and cancel contracts, and has the advantage of not being crackable.

Fax Evolution

The system for sending and receiving faxes has also been adapting to the evolution and development of new communication technologies. The Internet, which has brought about a revolution in different areas, from being configured as a source of knowledge, ideas and information exchange, to becoming an important sales channel, has also made the fax system evolve, without being able to replace it with other means of communication. communication.

The virtual fax or Internet fax is based on the same data transmission system as the traditional fax, through a telephone line, but replacing traditional fax machines with Web or email platforms, which means less distortion in sending and receiving, and the digitization of all documents.

This type of virtual fax solutions have enormous advantages over traditional systems; Firstly, because they are ecological by considerably reducing the consumption of paper or ink and the need for a specific machine, secondly because they are efficient by allowing the management of electronic files, thirdly because they are mobile phones by being able to manage the fax service from anywhere you have access to your email, including your mobile phone, and per room because they are economical as they reduce the costs of the fax by 90% by including everything in a small monthly cost, the fee for the number and the fax service.

Currently there is the option of using the Virtual Fax . This service allows you to send and receive faxes over the internet without using the "fax machine".