History of Fax Machines
Modern fax machines are quite different from their predecessors in terms of sophisticated features, capabilities and the cost of manufacturing. Ever since, the Scottish inventor Alexander Bain invented the rudimentary concepts of faxing messages in 1843, this telecommunication technology underwent many changes and the modern fax machines evolved only after a century.
It was Samuel Morse, who invented the telegraph machine in early nineteenth century showed the possibility of sending text messages to any distant location over copper wires. After the amazing discovery, many inventors made improvements in design and features of the devices that can send messages as electrical signals over wires.
Fax machine was developed on the principle (invented by Alexander Bain) of electric clock pendulum for scanning the documents. The stylus which is fixed on a pendulum in a fax machine moves over the document while scanning. The basic design of Bain’s fax machine is a mix up of techniques used in clocks and telegraph machines prevalent in his time.
A few years later, in 1850, another inventor, Frederick Bakewell designed a fax machine based on the Bain’s original design. This machine, also known as copying telegraph machine, was displayed for public view in exhibition in London.
Giovanni Caselli designed a fax machine named Pantelegraph in 1860. It was the first machine that sent a fax to Lyon from Paris.
After a long time, in 1895, another telecommunication machine was invented in Minnesota, USA. The inventor, Ernest Hummel called his machine ‘Telediagraph’ which had a few advantages over other such devices.
All these telecommunication devices based on fax technology were in rudimentary form and were not available for commercial use. However, the early twentieth century saw some radical discoveries that led to the design of modern fax machines – especially, the photoelectrical system invented by Dr. Arthur Korn and the advanced fax concepts invented by Edouard Belin.
Richard H. Ranger of Radio Corporation of America (RCA) invented the first photoradiogram which can send wireless messages to a remote location. Radio fax, as it is called, hit the market for commercial use in 1926.
Three years later, Rudolf Hell made improvements in scanning and transmission techniques and invented a machine called Hellschreiber.Exxon Qwip, the predecessor of modern fax machines, was introduced in 1970’s. However, Alexander Muirhead demonstrated his fax machine in 1947 and eight years later, sending fax across continents via radio waves was successfully demonstrated.
Since 1980’s, the modern, digital fax machines came with sophisticated features and superior capabilities. With time, fax machines also saw a steady decline in prices. Despite the competition with internet based telecommunication systems like email and internet fax, fax machines are still being used in many offices. Some official contracts which contain signatures are often sent via fax, while sending them via email or internet is considered invalid.
