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New one in my inbox this morning - now if you're going to scam someone at least make it relevant to the century we are living in!... 🤣
I remember seeing my first fax machine in the late 80s and thinking it was more magic than technology. Really exciting and cutting edge stuff. At nearly 60 it's staggering how much technology has moved on in my Lifetime.
I remember seeing my first fax machine in the late 80s and thinking it was more magic than technology. Really exciting and cutting edge stuff. At nearly 60 it’s staggering how much technology has moved on in my Lifetime.
Go to Japan. Everybody still has a fax machine. It's weird and a bit cool, as though technological development paused there in 1994.
Still see them in some NHS departments!
1986, fax and telex. I remember live on-screen chats with suppliers in Italy and Brazil via telex and being blown away by it. That technology moved on quickly.
1986, fax and telex. I remember live on-screen chats with suppliers in Italy and Brazil via telex and being blown away by it. That technology moved on quickly.
+1 I did some work experience in a warehouse where we were communicating with a rubber manufacturer in Italy in the mid 1980s
It's interesting to think that simple text-based communication is still preferred by many folk over the intrusion of voice or video messaging. 🤔
New one in my inbox this morning – now if you’re going to scam someone at least make it relevant to the century we are living in!… 🤣
Come on, give an exiled prince a chance, he may not have access to email whilst he's holed up figuring out how to get access to the $80M fortune he has.
We had one fax machine for an office of hundreds of staff in the 80's - I remember getting a phone call to say there was a fax on the way - cue getting up and going up two floors and to an office on the other side of the building to retrieve it.
Who remembers microfiche ?
Still see them in some NHS departments!
And I belive they're still used in legal circles as you can actually send a signature on one.
When I worked at British Airlines in the 90s on an industrial placement, there was a telex machine continuously chugging away pumping out reems of paper. The only time anyone paid any attention to it was when the paper roll ran out and someone changed it and threw the used paper that had accumulated on the floor below in the bin
I remember seeing my first fax machine in the late 80s and thinking it was more magic than technology. Really exciting and cutting edge stuff. At nearly 60 it’s staggering how much technology has moved on in my Lifetime.
My grandad was born in 1915 died in 2016.
People were talking about getting their first TV.
He piped up that he remembered getting a radio to listen to the first BBC radio broadcast!
Go to Japan. Everybody still has a fax machine.
Old people who still have landlines and don't have smartphones. Japanese cities don't use street names so giving street directions is basically impossible - sending a fax with a map is much easier than trying to explain how to find somewhere. Before computers, the Japanese writing system meant that nearly everything had to be written out by hand - sending a fax made things much easier. Young Japanese people are just as attached to their smartphones as young people anywhere else - they don't have landlines or faxes because they do everything on a smartphone.
Still see them in some NHS departments
I remember using one regularly in 2000 at Leeds Uni Hospital.
We’re trying to get them phased out in Queensland but some (older?) GP practices still prefer them to email.
There was a situation a few years ago where it turned out faxed responses to referrals were accidentally being sent to a business because their fax number was very similar to a GP.
Used to love sending/ receiving A1 drawings via fax. Lots of cutting, numbering and feeding then cutting the roll up and sellotaping a crazy patchwork quilt of drawing parts into a whole again.
email a pdf? Lightweight
There was a situation a few years ago where it turned out faxed responses to referrals were accidentally being sent to a business because their fax number was very similar to a GP.
Could have been worse
Yes, that was a classic.
But try telling that to patients on an outpatient list 🤣
Still see them in some NHS departments!
I thought they had been fully phased out now? I remember back in the early 90s, working for a PR company and they were in charge of the PR for a team in the Round the World Yacht Race. We had a dedicated Telex machine sat in the corner and the team would send updates that were written up as press releases by the writers and sent out to newspapers. I couldn't quite get my head around someone sending messages from somewhere in the middle of nowhere to leafy Harrogate.
Anyone ever send a fax bomb?
Send a sheet through a roller fax, then when it's halfway through grab the top edge and quickly tape it to the bottom edge to form a loop.
Remember as a young lawyer, trying to fax 400 page trial bundles to the Court, usually for it to get 390 pages in and start chewing it all up and having to start again!
I remember it being a revelation as well when we found out our new printer/fax could paginate and number the pages for you, instead of having to number pages by hand.
A bit after fax machines, but, as I work in the creative industry, we were early adopters of colour copiers (which was long before they had security measures built in to prevent illegal copying) and we used to copy £5 notes, cut them out and throw them out of the window for passers-by LOL!
Who remembers microfiche ?
I used one the other week, it's all gone digital now (basically scans to PDF) but still very much a thing when you need to trawl undigitised records.
We also still have fax in our emergency centres too.
Send a sheet through a roller fax, then when it’s halfway through grab the top edge and quickly tape it to the bottom edge to form a loop.
I recall a colleague on his final day taking an entire box of fan fold and basically drawing the bottom of a "childish graffiti style" dribbling willy on page 1, the top on the final page and then tapping two biros to the fax machine to draw parallel lines between the two as it went.
Lamentably it didn't work as well as hoped due to insufficient tape but head office still got the gist of it.
Some bloke in trouble middle east wanted me to help them shift US$20 million because they inherited the money from their late father and their government wanted the money. They would give me commission once I have sent them my bank details and some administration fees. They are very polite btw and thanked me in advance.
And I belive they’re still used in legal circles as you can actually send a signature on one.
This always amazes me. We've got loads of electronic signature and verification technology yet banks and lawyers want you to scrawl on a piece of paper as proof.
This always amazes me. We’ve got loads of electronic signature and verification technology yet banks and lawyers want you to scrawl on a piece of paper as proof.
It's much more secure - fax is almost impossible to hack and it comes with a default "delivered" notification which can be used in court. A lot of law firms in particular still rely heavily on fax.
Used a lot in medical circles for the same reason.
Gosh, do you remember walking into the office on a Monday morning and seeing all the spam faxes piled up from over the weekend?
I also had to explain the concept of a fax to a graduate about 5 years ago. That was... An interesting experience. Mind you, most of the group she was in knew what they were.
Then I said "telex" 😁
We deal with India at work - they still love a fax!
It’s much more secure –
Sort of. I mean yes the fax is pretty secure but the actual scrawling on a piece of paper? It's not exactly fool proof especially in an age where no one does it one year to the next so it looks completely different every time. The best indication my signature had been forged these days would be it bearing more of a resemblance than just the colour of the pen to the last one I did.
I remember when I hooked a computer with a modem up to replace my dad's fax machine at home. Now that seemed like magic, sending and receiving faxes on a computer, no more wasted paper.
Sort of. I mean yes the fax is pretty secure but the actual scrawling on a piece of paper? It’s not exactly fool proof especially in an age where no one does it one year to the next so it looks completely different every time. The best indication my signature had been forged these days would be it bearing more of a resemblance than just the colour of the pen to the last one I did
This was the point I was trying to make. I imagine it's something to do with the fact that the legal system has tried and tested methods or precedents for identifying forgeries but hasn't caught up with the modern era.
That or the profession is clinging to the past (wigs and gowns in court anyone?).
I was once restricted to light duties and found myself working in the front enquiry office of Halifax Police Station. In those days a person stranded without means to purchase a rail ticket could apply for a travel warrant at the police station. A somewhat naiive probationer was spending half a a day with us to learn about the role of the front office staff (this was in the days before police staff were employed in any great numbers) and he answered the phone. The caller was a colleague in a station the other side of the Pennines who was asking us for a travel warrant for a lad who needed to get back to Halifax after a night in the cells in Lancs.
Now, the system was for us to sign an authorisation of payment, fax it to Lancs and simply send the copy up to our admin office. Lancs would then hand the lad a travel warrant that he could use to get a ticket. Our Admin would then receive an invoice from British Rail, marry the two up and pay the invoice. However, the probationer told me that Lancs were requesting payment for a ticket costing something like £8.75. "So how do we do that by Fax?" he asked.
Never one to pass up an opportunity for a giggle I told him to take a tenner out of the petty cash in the safe, photocopy it and fax the copy to Lancs, which he did. They must have realised what was going on because we then received a faxed copy of £1.25 change.
Who remembers microfiche ?
I used it a lot for archival research in my degrees and working. I find it mesmerising. The British Newspaper Library (RIP) and old Tasmanian newspapers are favourites - reading about the identifying features of early 19th Century escaped convicts, or upcoming auctions of newly arrived goods. I could get lost in them for hours.
I worked in France at the end of the 90s - the place I worked at used Minitel, which was pretty good for finding useful information and sending messages within France. Looking back it was ahead of the internet in many ways, but seemed to be forgotten about quite quickly once more places had internet access.
Fax machines and dot matrix printers made fantastic sounds.
Oh aye...
brrrrrrrrrrrrrt
EEEEEEEEEEEEEET!
brrrrrrrrrrrrrt
EEEEEEEEEEEEEET!
brrrrrrrrrrrrrt
EEEEEEEEEEEEEET!
brrrrrrrrrrrrrt
EEEEEEEEEEEEEET!
brrrrrrrrrrrrrt
EEEEEEEEEEEEEET!
If hell made ASMR it would be a dot matrix printer.
When I worked in a Telco Network Ops Centre, every so often our fax machine would start receiving deluges of Spam faxes. Silly thing to do, as after doing a dump on the call detail records for all calls to our fax machine it was easy to see the originator of the Spam.
We supplied said operator of 'marketing faxes' with a whole pile of ISDN30's for their fax modem banks, and it was amazing how often there was a fault not found, after hours sometimes even weekend long outages on all of their ISDN30's for their entire operation.