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Fax (short for facsimile, from Latin fac simile, "make similar", i.e. "make a copy") is a telecommunications technology used to transfer copies (facsimiles) of documents, especially using affordable devices operating over the telephone network. The word telefax, short for telefacsimile, for "make a copy at a distance", is also used as a synonym.
Scottish inventor Alexander Bain is often credited with the first fax patent in 1843. He used his knowledge of electric clock pendulums to produce a back-and-forth line-by-line scanning mechanism.
Frederick Bakewell made several improvements on Bain's design and demonstrated the device at the 1851 World's Fair in London.
In 1861, the first fax machine, Pantelegraph, was sold by Giovanni Caselli, even before the invention of workable telephones.
As a designer for the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), in 1924, Richard H. Ranger invented the wireless photoradiogram, or transoceanic radio facsimile, the forerunner of today’s "Fax" machines. A photograph of President Calvin Coolidge sent from New York to London on November 29, 1924 became the first photo picture reproduced by transoceanic radio facsimile. Commercial use of Ranger’s product began two years later. Radio fax is still in common use today for transmitting weather charts and information.
An early method for facsimile transmission, the Hellschreiber, was invented in 1929 by Rudolf Hell, a pioneer in mechanical image scanning and transmission.
Prior to the introduction of the now ubiquitous fax machine, one of the first being the Xerox Qyx in the mid-1970s, facsimile machines (the word "fax" had not yet been coined) worked by optical scanning of a document or drawing spinning on a drum. The reflected light, varying in intensity according to the light and dark areas of the document, was focused on a photocell to be converted to an electrical signal varying in frequency. This audio tone was then tranmitted using a common telephone handset inserted in an acoustic coupler serving as a modem. At the receiving end, the same technique (handset in acoustic coupler) converted the varying tone into mechanical movement of a pen or pencil to reproduce the image on a blank sheet of paper on an identical drum rotating at the same rate. A pair of these expensive and bulky machines could only be afforded by companies with a serious need to communicate drawings, design sketches or signed documents between distant locations such as an office and factory.
In 1985, Dr. Hank Magnuski, founder of GammaLink, produced the first computer fax board, called GammaFax.
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