Fax is short for facsimile (from the latin fac simile which means to make similar). It is used as a telecommunication technology to copy and send copies or facsimiles across distances . It is also known as a telecopier in certain countries and industries though popularity has dropped in recent years in favor of email.
The traditional method for sending faxes requires a phone line a fax machine for sending and another fax machine for receiving. The fax machine consists of a scanner, a printer and a modem all of which are incorporated into the device to make sending printed documents faster and communication easier. The Fax machine scanner scans the images into and encodes them into digital data. The modem then sends this data as pulses through the phone line where it is received and decoded on the other side. The receiving fax machine decodes the information and marks the paper accordingly.
A modern fax machine scans a document one line at a time making it possible to send as bits and pulses. A modern fax machine once it has scanned a line of information understands it like this.
This image shows a document and the redline is one line whcih the fax machine reads, the image below is how the fax machine understands this lines. It shows a black and white dots and simply sends and copies it to the receiving fax machine.
Devices like it before we’re teleprinters. Teleprinters are devices which allow point to point sending of typed messages. It’s like a primitive type of chat that allows a typed message to be seen instantaneously. In Japan, fax became easily more popular as it was easier to hand write kanji than to type it at the time (this was before internet). At the same time Fax allowed for both typed and handwritten documents to be sent easily. Making it popular with businesses that required signatures.
Currently, Fax has slowly been placed aside as a preference for email and the internet grows. It is still commonly used by businesses for signed contracts and resumes. Also the disadvantage of the lost of quality of images and data made it disadvantageous to modern email.
Most telephone companies and printer companies have fax services, dedicated fax phone lines and manufacture fax machines though the technology has declined in popularity.
Some modern modifications to this technology include internet fax which allows the user to recieve fax machines even without a fax machine to receive it in. It allows the fax to be scanned and sent as a pdf into your personal email inbox. This also cuts the cost of having a faxmachine as a dedicated phone line is no longer needed to recieve faxes.
by Mark Lester C. Lacsamana
Sources:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fax
http://communication.howstuffworks.com/fax-machine.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment