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Author(s):

Timeline

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Event:
First patent on facsimile transmission by Alexander Bain in Britain

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First commercial facsimile operating system by Abbe Caselli in France

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First facsimile transmission by telephone by Arthur Korn in Germany

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First commercial wirephoto system by ATT

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First international fax service between Germany and Austria

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Introduction of AP wirephoto service

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Introduction of the Xerox Telecopier

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Introduction of the Japanese READ fax standard

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Approval by the CCITT of the Group 3 fax standard

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Introduction by Gammalink of the PC faxboard

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Peak of fax machine sales in the United States

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Peak of fax machine sales in Japan

Synopsis

The basic concept of a fax machine -- a machine that electrically transmits an image -- has not changed since 1843. The three main components were, and remain, the scanner-transmitter, the transmitting medium, and the receiver-recorder. What has changed are its enabling and supporting technologies, the social environment, its competition, and the expectations and assumptions of its promoters and users. Facsimile’s history was in some sense a history of the telecommunications, electronics, and computer industries. Without them, there would be no fax industry. Three broad intertwined technical trends appeared in the century and a half of fax history. First, the complexity of fax equipment vastly increased over time. Second, as machines became more sophisticated, they became "black boxes," their technical aspects increasingly hidden from view. Third, they became easier to use while increasing in capability. For most of its long history, facsimile was a concept in search of implementation, an impractical solution in search of a feasible problem. The concept dates back to Alexander Bain’s 1843 patent. The first commercial service began (and ended) in the 1860s, but the first profitable service appeared only after World War I. The mid-1960s saw the first sustained efforts to produce fax machines for general business use. Not until the 1980s, however, did fax catch on and become an essential communications tool, first in Japan, followed by the United States, and then the rest of the world. By 2000, however, e-mail and the WorldWide Web had rendered the fax machine obsolescent though not obsolete.

Bibliography

References of Historical Significance:

Author: Year:

Title:
“Certain Improvements in Producing and Regulating Electric Currents and Improvements in Electric Time-pieces, and in Electric Printing and Signal Telegraphs”

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Author: Year:

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''Handbuch der Phototelegraphie und Telautographie''

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Author: Year:

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''Picture Telegraphy''

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Author: Year:

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''Radio Facsimile''

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Author: Year:

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''Facsimile. New Communication Media'' (Fakushimiri: Atarashii Tsuushin Media)

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References for Further Reading:

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Title:
''FAX: Digital Facsimile Technology and Applications'', 2nd ed.

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Author: Year:

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"Facsimile's false starts"

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Author: Year:

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“Creating Fax Standards: Technology Red in Tooth and Claw?”

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Author: Year:

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''Edouard Belin: Le pere de la television''

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Author: Year:

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''L’inventione del FAX. La transmissione facsimile nella seconda meta dell’Ottocento''

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About the Author(s)

Jonathan Coopersmith is an Associate Professor of History at Texas A&M University, where he teaches the history of technology. This article is part of his larger research on the history of the fax machine from the 1840s to the present. Coopersmith has also written about the electrification of Russia, the intertwining of pornography and communications technologies, and the importance of failure in technology.

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[[Category:Communications]]

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