JUST THE FAX

I heard an astonishing news report the other day that said folks down east in one maritime community could only register for a COVID-19 vaccination by FAX. Remember the FAX machine? FAX, short for facsimile, was sometimes referred to as telecopying or telefax, short for telefacsimile which is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material, both text and images. Normally these were sent to a telephone number that was connected to a printer or other output device. The original document was scanned with a fax machine that processed the content as a single fixed graphic image and transmitted it through the phone system in the form of audio-frequency tones.

The receiving fax machine interprets the tones, reconstructs the image, and prints a paper copy. Down East it took as long as 130 seconds to process one fax vaccination registration. Imagine hundreds, thousands of applications. Compare that to email. Ontario is said to be phasing out 1500 fax machines in 2021.

Scotsman Alexander Bain invented the fax machine in 1843, eleven years before Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Perhaps a classic case of putting the horse before the cart? The fax’s first commercial use was apparently to provide service in France between Paris and Lyon in 1865.

Bain’s Electric Printing Telegraph has evolved many times since that day and ultimately became popular with consumers in the 1980s. Although email has digitally replaced the fax machine due to speed and convenience it is said that a fax is more secure as emails pass through digital firewalls, servers, and virus checkers. “Thus, they are copied and can be compromised during the process.”

When one says, “Just the Fax” it brings to mind the popular television series Dragnet featuring Sgt. Joe Friday, an investigating officer of the Los Angeles police department, who was constantly asking for “Just the facts, ma’am.” Harry Morgan, of Col. Potter fame from MASH, was his second side-kick. Today it seems that one can watch the series on Netflix. Which would be a monstrously significantly different experience when compared to our black & white 12 inch TV screens when the series first ran from 1951-59? Perhaps you remember the series?

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Photo – by Wiki – Alexander Bain’s fax machine.