The Brief History of the Fax Machine

Telefacsimile’s or Fax Machines are an everyday must for many businesses around the world.

A fax means basically scanning a page to make an electronic representation of its text or graphics, compresses the data to save transmission time, and transmits it to another facsimile machine. The receiving machine decrypts the signal and uses a printer (usually built in) to make a facsimile of the original page.

Several people took part in inventing the machine; they include Alexander Bain, Elisha Gray, Arthur Korn, and Edouard Beeline. It took almost 140 years for the fax machine to become an everyday appliance, but its roots have been around for quite a while.

The history of the fax machine begins in England in 1843 with Alexander Bain. He devised an apparatus made up of two pens connected to two pendulums. He joined the two together with a wire, and was able to reproduce writing onto an electrically conductive surface.

Several years later, in 1862, Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli built a machine he called a pantelegraph, which was based on Bain’s invention. His pantelegraph was used by the French Post & Telegraph agency between Paris and Marseilles from 1856 to 1870.

Elisha Gray, an American inventor, invented and patented many electrical devices, including a facsimile transmission system. He almost patented the telephone, but Alexander Graham Bell beat him to it by only a few hours. Gray organized a company that later became known as the Western Electronic Company.

Another man, in 1902, by the name of Arthur Korn, invented telephotography, a means for manually breaking down and transmitting still photographs by means of electrical wires. In 1907, Korn sent the first inter-city fax when he transmitted a photograph from Munich to Berlin. This was perhaps the greatest boost the fax machine had faced so far, and soon many people would try to prefer the machine.

In France, Edouard Beeline constructed the Belinograph. His invention involved placing an image on a cylinder and scanning it with a powerful light beam that had a photoelectric cell, which could covert light, or the absence of light, into transmittable electrical impulses. The Belinograph process used the basic principle upon which all subsequent facsimile transmission machines would be based.

Today’s fax machines owe their core design to the Belinograph although many fax machines have changed over the years. Several companies would try to develop the fax machine, and one such company was Xerox.

For several years, the fax machine was expensive and difficult to operate; perhaps explaining why it was never used much by businesses prior to the 1980’s. In 1966, the Xerox Company introduced a smaller model that would be more accessible to users by sending its transmissions over existing telephone lines. You could send a document from one fax machine to another in about 6 minutes this way, this is slow for today, but back then it represented a significant step toward greater technology.

The Japanese soon entered this market, and soon started to develop smaller, faster, easier to use machines once they saw the great potential behind this technology. Today many companies including Hewlett Packard, Xerox, Panasonic, and a host of others make Fax machines.

1. Задайте вопросы к предложениям, начиная их словами в скобках.

1. Several people took part in inventing the machine; they include Alexander Bain, Elisha Gray, Arthur Korn, and Edouard Beeline. (Who?)

2. The history of the fax machine begins in England in 1843 with Alexander Bain. (When?)

3. Several years later, in 1862, Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli built a machine he called a pantelegraph, which was based on Bain’s invention. (What … on?)

4. Gray organized a company that later became known as the Western Electronic Company. (Who?)

5. For several years, the fax machine was expensive and difficult to operate; perhaps explaining why it was never used much by businesses prior to the 1980’s. (Why?)

6. Today many companies including Hewlett Packard, Xerox, Panasonic, and a host of others make Fax machines. (What companies …?)