The Shockingly Old Origin of the Fax Machine

[@lmpeters]

My personal favorite fax fact: When the Soviet Union landed the first unmanned probe with a camera on the moon, they transmitted pictures back to Earth using a radio signal that used the same protocol as a fax machine. It just so happened that the radio telescope at England's Jodrell Bank Observatory was aimed at the moon at the time of the landing, and recorded the signal from the probe. The astronomers at Jodrell Bank then made a phone call to the Daily Telegraph, who brought over their fax machine to help decode the message. As a result, even though the first photographs taken from the surface of the moon came from a Soviet probe, they were first published in a British newspaper. Needless to say, the Soviets were not amused.

[@QuantumRift]

that's what happens you you use off-the-shelf technology. Badda bing badda boom.

[@QuantumRift]

@Keith Busch Then you are as stupid as you are ignorant. Well, probably MORE stupid than ignorant but either way... We've photographed all the landing sites, as well as the tracks left by the rover on the lunar surface. To not understand probably means your intellect is pretty feeble....my guess is that you have the intellectual ability of a small soap dish, nothing more.

[@jmas081391]

source article for this, thanks!

[@MegaJJ1968]

I‘m always amazed by the ingenuity of inventors of the mid to late 1800‘s. Still so much stuff we rely on nowadays.

[@MsJubjubbird]

Well I guess the dawn of electricity opened up a whole new realm of opportunityes

[@AgentOffice]

Why no modern inventors

[@SebastianBlix]

Simon - "Today we think of the fax machine as an outdated piece of technology" Japan - "Hold my pager..." Seriously though, fax is STILL the primary method of business communication by a LOT here in Japan.

[@Sorcerers_Apprentice]

Some people who do on call work also still use pagers.

[@bradybaker7650]

Did a samurai ever fax Abraham Lincoln?

[@robertrada4783]

This and ATM’s with closing times are what first comes to mind when I think of Japan.

[@micheal49]

Wife got a new job. They snail-mailed a form for her to sign, which she was then required to scan and save as JPG, which she then had to print and fax. We were both all WTAF?

[@SebastianBlix]

@@micheal49 2 years later and this is still common practice lol.

[@FraizyMD]

Human perseverance, dedication and ingenuity in the pursuit of innovation never fails to astound me...

[@unclepatrick2]

Fax machines are still used in State and County Governments a lot. Copies of Legal Documents are often needed and Faxes are still the best way to send them.

[@iitzfizz]

heard of email?

[@Vanished_Mostly]

I always forget there's music in these videos until I listen reeeeally closely.

[@ErikSmitSmite]

I keep thinking I'm getting a call in Discord, but it's just the faint music in these videos...

[@madpom2]

Love the green tint that's reflecting of your left glass lens😀😀

[@mursuhillo242]

Thou treadest the perilous path. Saying anything of the word in this day of the time is like juggling three watermelons with only one's cock, which be 'put to use' beforehand

[@deus_ex_machina_]

@@mursuhillo242 wat?

[@kkfoto]

@@mursuhillo242 Whatever

[@acetate909]

Today I Found Out: Fax Facts

*faxcts*

[@Demonhawk14]

Damn you sir. Have an upvote.

[@robinl4975]

I actually like the disposable camera :3 it makes you think more about what you really want a picture of, instead of taking 50 photos of a rock from different angles xD

[@allanrichardson1468]

I don’t know how far back this goes, certainly to my childhood in the 1950s, probably before World War II: pictures in newspapers could be taken in another state or country and sent by fax over phone or radio, and were often captioned “AP Wirephoto” or “AP Radiophoto.” The sensing in the transmitter was done by focusing a spot of bright light on to paper, mounted on a drum, and the copy was exposed by focusing the same bright light on photosensitive paper. This kind of fax, requiring manual setup by operators in each end of a phone call, was still used for short (mostly one page) time critical reports up until the self-dialing, self-answering, self-syncing, self-feeding digital faxes became available. Also, radio fax is one of the modes of transmission licensed on the amateur (Ham) radio bands in the US.

[@heyarno]

Fun fact: .tiff images use the same encoding as ISDN fax machines.

[@scharkalvin]

FAX is hardly dead. Many businesses still publish their FAX numbers and accept orders via FAX, (though they also accept via email these days). If you need to scan a document and send it FAX is still an option, though you can generate a PDF file from your scanner via a word processor and email that. HP "all in one" printers still include FAX modems.

[@thenightwatchman1598]

fax is encoded. so its more private than email. none of the messages sent are stored in a server thats one advantage.

[@BIGDEX71]

It's amazing that starting around 1888 these devices are considered the foundation and beginning of what we now know as graphic drawing tablets. Which is to include iPads, Wacom tablets, Wacom Cintiqs and so on. History is truly amazing.

[@viewer-of-content]

... "Not everyone gets a happy ending." Simon Whistler

[@cmdraftbrn]

they could if they go to the right massage parlors in miami, alledgedly

[@TheBruceKeller]

@@cmdraftbrn I think if you go to a massage parlor that's run by Asians you have about a 95% chance anywhere in the world probably. :)

[@Mike504]

I get people coming in to where I work and tell me I have to send their fax because they aren't good "with all this new technology" if you say so Methuselah.

[@mesteme]

Gioacchino Rossini, the composer of the operatic version of Beaumarchais' Barber of Seville, was Italian, not French.

[@witkofhf]

Stefano Melis, I wanted to point out just the same: he lived for a long time in France and eventually died there, but he was born and had a very successful career as a composer in Italy before.

[@mesteme]

@@witkofhf Funnily enough Rossini was born as Napoleon invaded the northern regions of Italy, so calling him French is really not that far off :)

[@witkofhf]

Stefano Melis, that would be odd indeed... I wanted to check, so I opened Wikipedia to find that he was born in 1792 in Pesaro and the first Italian campaign by Napoléon dates 1796. So I might be wrong but it seems that he grew up in a French occupied Italy, and his father was actually a supporter of the French Revolution ideas, but he was born under the Papal Estate...

[@johnopalko5223]

I saw an interesting sort-of-fax-machine-but-not-really back in the early 1980s when I was taking flying lessons. My instructor and I flew over to DuPage County Airport and visited the Chicago Flight Service Station (FSS). The FSS Specialist had a device that was a pen that was hooked up to a couple of senders that transmitted the X- and Y-coordinates of the pen to a receiving unit in the control tower. What ever the Specialist wrote was reproduced in the tower. When we finished up at Flight Service, we went up to he tower and saw the other end of the device. As far as I know, it was all analog, operating over two copper pairs. It might have been a single pair, multiplexed, but I don't know. My instructor was trying to teach me about how to get a weather briefing from and how to file a flight plan with Flight Service and then about all the things that the tower controllers did, but I was too busy geeking out over the remote-writing thingie.

[@devanarayans5131]

i felt really sorry for bane, but the bonus fact covered that up

[@jaredwix9030]

Hard to please everyone. I enjoy the videos Mr. Simon.

[@95blahblahhaha]

We use fax machines everyday at work and I just always think it's funny that in 2019 we still use technology that makes the dial up sound

[@kkfoto]

Millions of fax devices are still in use around the world...

[@applegal3058]

I work in a government office, and we use the fax machine all the time! Its not totally obsolete.

[@Chris_Garman]

Welcome to email.

[@applegal3058]

@@Chris_Garman We use email too lol just wanted to say fax machines are still around 😁

[@Josh_Fredman]

I am a big fan of the ol' telefacsimile machine and I hope they make a comeback! I always include them in my sci-fi writing. =]

[@rcbif101]

My work still has a fax machine for some reason, and it gets more fax spam than actual business faxes, so I've taken up the hobby of collecting them in a binder and sorting them by subject.

[@bobthegoat7090]

What an absolute useless hobby. Sounds interesting😅

[@VelocityWriting]

Waiting for the ultimate fax machine: A Star Trek-like Transporter.

[@craigcorson3036]

You have a very long wait ahead of you. The amount of energy involved would be truly staggering.

[@YouTubecanfuckagoat]

Craig Corson Not to mention the unique & frankly formidable coding issues involved. I doubt live subjects would still be so...after the procedure. What do you do with the original? Since an equation to disassemble & then reassemble a person...may have significant... cancellations needed for it to work. I’m not volunteering. I’ll stay here & do the math., thx anyways

[@craigcorson3036]

@@KZbincanfuckagoat Absolutely right. The only way that I can see for a transporter to become a reality, is if someone figures out how to radically bend space. Again, though, I strongly suspect that that also would run up against an energy problem.

[@buddyclem7328]

I would settle for a replicator, so long as the food it produced actually tasted right.

[@craigcorson3036]

@@buddyclem7328 THOSE, we can actually expect to be using in the next fifty years or so, maybe less.

[@brooksrownd2275]

We still use landline telephones every single day.

[@laurenanderson7330]

I don’t. Haven’t in around 10 years at least.

[@McNair1952]

Well I've lived in Aberdeen, Scotland for 43 years and I never knew he was a local 'loon'.

[@vwestlife]

Fax machines are still pretty impressive if you think about it!

[@randallporter9707]

There is a great scene in the Steve McQueen Bulitt where he's in Police HQ waiting for a Photo of a suspect from Chicago. It takes twenty minutes and a trained tech to do it.

[@CrazyBear65]

Part of my job is reading blueprints. Blueprints aren't blue anymore. Ferrocyanide isn't used in the process anymore, but they are still known as blueprints. Just thought I'd throw that out there. I remember Hank Williams Jr had a song, Fax Me A Beer. I also remember the sound a dial-up modem makes. Do you remember Natalie Wood's last film, Brainstorm? I remember it. There's a scene where Christopher Walken uses a Fax machine built into a briefcase, he uses it in a payphone, it has a cradle to set the receiver into... One of those weird 80s devices...

[@buddyclem7328]

Hold up! All of those things, except for disposable cameras, are in every American office today!

[@plinkitee]

I can vouch. We use them every day where I work.

You have taxi machines, I get that... but pagers?! Is your office somewhere in the 1990s? Fascinating!

[@buddyclem7328]

@ Not my office, but medical professionals like doctors still carry pagers in the US, and those pagers seem identical to the ones used in the 1990s.

[@macbuff81]

very cool! These inventors amaze me. They were able the relatively simple and crude technology of the time to create something very intricate. Just another example showing that technological advances most often occur in an evolutionary manner.

[@krazytaxicabbie]

Love this show. I learn everything i never remember to ask. Have you done record players yet? Grooves producing sound like that still confuses me.

[@QuantumRift]

It's not rocket science.

[@seancicogna8334]

This video deserves way more views

[@MrKenichi22]

Because of this invention, TV was possible. I am impressed.

[@ProfessorYana]

Additional Bonus Fact: The electrical circuit known as the "Wheatstone bridge" - a variant of the bridge circuit, said variant commonly used to measure the electrical resistance of a component whose resistance is unknown - is named for Sir Charles Wheatstone.

[@ericveneto1593]

Gray ALMOST got the credit for inventing the telephone

[@geoffjones5421]

Gray did invent the telephone. Several years ago the US government actually apologised for letting Bell have the patent. A bit late!

[@ericveneto1593]

"Today I found out" that the USA belatedly apologized to Elisha Gray. ;)

[@stevefox3763]

Some businesses and especially UK government agencies will still only accept documents via fax and not email due to the direct connection making it secure instead of it being sent over a potentially compromised computer or insecure net connection.

[@emorag]

Traditional analog faxes, and telephone lines in general, are actually not secure connections because there's generally no encryption. Anyone can plug into the line and intercept the call / transmission. But the culprit would have to be physically present and couldn't hack the analog signal remotely, which gives it an edge over digital media such as email or unencrypted digital faxes (which can possibly be intercepted remotely). That said, governments and companies who utilize secure digital encryption for internal communication can utilize encrypted digital media (including email) between remote locations without fear.

[@jonnunn4196]

@@emorag Even that is somewhat outdated for a decade as their are websites that you can upload your document to that will then fax it to the number without someone being present. It probably just routes to an all in one machine that can send and receive faxes and emails in addition to scanning and copying.

[@MrBrunoUSA]

the fx machine is 30 years older than I thought. interesting.

[@dragonskunkstudio7582]

I prefer this show with Simon than the other that constantly break into a electric guitar riff.

[@Zandanga]

Thanks for this one. Love trivia of this sort. Think you already did the Tesla/Edison story ... need to search and watch again. At least I think that was you ...

[@gaijinpete]

In Japan, fax machines are common and necessary to do most non face to face administration

[@ilikedota5]

why

[@weepingwillow-ud6xl]

To see an animation of Bain's Fax working as well as the diagram, would have been better than bombarding us with many other facts & names.

[@DaveSomething]

the VA still makes me send them faxes and occasionally they fax me! I had to get a VOIP box to make the old shite work!

[@EffectPlaceboThe]

There are android apps the send and receive faxes. I've used them. Scan to pdf and the pdf is encoded for fax and sent

[@jonnunn4196]

Not just VA: About a decade ago US Banks while accepting faxed applications would refuse to accept emailed applications; and didn't have a upload button on their site for completed applications. A former coworker not having access to a fax machine and also not wanting to wait for snail mail nor drive there in person, found a web site to upload any documents and from there fax them to the desired phone number. (email : 0% trusted; fax: 100% trusted)

[@DaveSomething]

@@jonnunn4196 mom uses faxzero dot com. it's weird how a fax is so trusted, I can digitally sign and encrypt an email... but send a fax from my cell phone.

[@DaveSomething]

@@EffectPlaceboThe I've used it, never received a fax that way though.

[@SkywalkerSamadhi]

Why do they call them rainchecks and were they ever really a thing?

[@MuttFitness]

Because you came into the store due to rain and found something you wanted but have no money. You pay for it and take the item later.

[@LisaBowers]

They're definitely still a thing. If my grocery store runs out of an item they have on sale, they'll give me a raincheck so I can buy it _at the sale price_ when it's back in stock.

[@MuttFitness]

@@LisaBowers I think I might have misremembered what a rain check is. Maybe it is worth a video.

[@LisaBowers]

@@MuttFitness Hehe. Maybe you're just experiencing a _rain check Mandela effect._ 😉 Actually, rain checks started with baseball back in the 19th century. If a game was called off on account of rain, the stadium would offer rain checks, or vouchers, to ticketholders so they could come back to another game without having to pay for another ticket.

[@craigcorson3036]

Lisa Bowers has the correct answer.

[@Turnbull50]

When I worked under contract to the BBC converting the TV's in rest homes to digital. This was free for the home. We often needed the manager of these homes to sign documents but of course most of the time they where to busy. We used to fax them the document to sign and then once signed this was faxed back and we then had a copy each and could get on with the work. the digital TV switchover was completed on 24 October 2012. All the big office copiers we used had a fax connection to the phone lines.

[@neilamstutz7253]

Noah S. Amstutz (1864-1957) invented and patented in 1895 the Amstutz Electro-Artgraph, a device that permitted transmitting photographs by wire. The device was pictured on the cover of Scientific American that year.

[@goodchessactor]

Wheatstone invented the Wheatstone Bridge still used today.

[@QuantumRift]

I crossed over it a couple weeksw ago.

[@alexlandherr]

At 6:08, a form of APT transmission. I know that because it’s a technology which is used on NOAA weather satellites to transmit data from the AVHRR radar instrument. Ask a radio amateur operator and they will tell you it’s true.

[@PhiTheProducer]

Now for *another* bonus fact: Alexander Bain’s Telegraph technology would later be used in the transmission of video signals. Leading some to consider him the “Real Father of Television.”

[@georgecataloni4720]

I will never throw out my disposable camera!!!

[@PileOfEmptyTapes]

One of the coolest "fax" protocols I've come across would have to be Hellschreiben (see: Hellschreiber), developed in the late 1920s. While utilitarian and oft _slantalicious,_ it is quite robust and work well across poor-quality radio links, and being pixel-based, there basically are few limits when it comes to possible characters.

[@robertfoley8414]

LOL Just before watching this episode, you tube ran an efax add😀. And they ran another after😀😀

[@pressonc]

Faxes are still the standard for legal documents and that is unlikely to change anytime soon.

[@lizzard7473]

That's just amazing

[@mrwarr]

I had a coworker complaining about how we’re so far behind the times with technology because we required faxes. She didn’t believe me when I told her how old faxes were and my brief research only showed a 110 year history of the humble fax.

[@csebesta84]

I got a fax machine ad before this video 🤣🤣

[@CieJe.Alexander]

So let me get this straight. Historically speaking it goes; fax machine, typewriter, pencil, ballpoint pen? Too weird! History never ceases to astound!

[@Solidier1]

I suggest do a video on Galen Winsor. Who'd worked on the Manhattan project and ate Uranium and another deadly radiation material (forgot the name) and lived until his unrelated death.

[@bobby_greene]

The other radioactive material was McDonald's

[@jeanbonnefoy1377]

seems you forgot Edouard Belin's belinogramme and belinograph - orginally named 'telestereograph' - invented and patented in Paris in 1907.

[@BRICK8492]

I work in IT, and can confirm that too many people still use these things. They are the bane of my existence.

[@calisahardy4845]

Thank you. I will try to think on these things this evening while I fight with the fax machine in the office. 😉 So it's not me it's the machine and it's age (or aging technology).

[@rwinkler4321]

Love him or hate him, he spittin' straight fax.

[@alexanderkarayannis6425]

Just the fax, ma'am!...

[@sitoudien9816]

Still being used in Japan. Customers can fax to a bank. How can that be secure? A hot meal delivery service receives over 30000 faxes a day. In land where trees are scarce, faxes reign supreme.

[@zerothisbaud4226]

Cool. Now what about transmitting moving images before TV?

[@gatecrasher0380]

Amazing.

[@greatdragonturtle7359]

Fun fact: if the Fax machine was invented in 1837, Abraham Lincoln died in 1865 and the samurai were abolished in 1871 then there was a 29 year window where a samurai could have sent a fax to Abraham Lincoln.

[@thelazywanderer_jt]

This guy. Is. *everywhere.*

[@PaulMeranda]

... didnt TIFO just talk about the guy that worked as a watch apprentice, messing around with hardware at night, leading to a major invention i can't immediately remember?

[@YouTubecanfuckagoat]

Paul Meranda For some reason I’m thinking about a stone ..! 🤔

[@ricardomaggiore5518]

We still using fax here in Italy. No joke. Old country with old people.

[@guybaot]

Just a question... Why is it that we were not informed of the belinograph? It is a machine anterior to fax machines.

[@cynicalrabbit915]

Who came up with the Wheatstone Bridge?

[@Marco_Onyxheart]

I'm inspired by this video to go make a photocopier. It will be shit, but I think I can do it. I've already got some ideas that are more solid than some ideas for other creations of mine that did end up working.

[@JamesBond-xx1lv]

Can you PLEASE explain right to repair?? I don't understand why some companies don't want you taking apart the things you bought.

[@Zandanga]

Proprietary hardware/software and/or potential exposure to hazardous materials.

[@JamesBond-xx1lv]

NanaEphemera not a soul around here asked for your opinion.

[@JamesBond-xx1lv]

Oh but what you mayve not understood is i asked TIFO to explain it. You know the KZbin channel? Not any of you clowns....

[@RedMonkeyTrucking]

Love your vids

[@drmgiverdrmgiver5335]

Gotta love a good "idear" lol

[@rleeAZ]

I use a fax and a land line several times a day, as well as more modern devices.

[@buckshot6481]

Right, I really like the channel, please do an episode on BREXIT.

[@tonyelmacizo7279]

History Chanel will Claim this is a Ancest Ufos Tecnology

[@demonslayer6588]

Why do swivel chairs typically have five legs?

[@PileOfEmptyTapes]

Stability for a given size. Try tipping something over that has as little as 3 feet - it is substantially easier in some directions than in others. Basically, effective lever length is between center and the triangle connecting the support points. In an equilateral triangle, it would vary by a factor of 1/cos(60°) = 2, and it is the minimum length that determines dimensioning of the whole thing. Add more feet, and the supporting area becomes more and more circular in shape, so this variation is reduced accordingly. 5 proved to be a good compromise between stability and complexity, with a variation of no more than 1/cos(36°) ~= 1.24. The legs can then be correspondingly shorter. Yay for trigonometry. The only reason anyone still uses tripods or mic stands with 3 feet is that they are stable no matter how crooked the surface, though the reduced complexity certainly is welcome as well. Tables tend not to be high or lightweight enough for a "mere" 4 legs to be an issue.

[@demonslayer6588]

PileOfEmptyTapes Thank you, that was very informative, have a nice day.

[@sevenaries]

This is straight fax

[@addisonsmith7949]

Fax machines are still around along with landline phones and disposable cameras

[@Babarudra]

Hey! I still have a landline. Cell service sucks here.

[@charliemurphy6457]

Ok now, I did not know how long we've had one

[@kalmah2112]

We use them for classified documents in a message distributing centre. I think it's dumb because they should just be able to use classified email as well.

[@MsJubjubbird]

Someone asked me to fax them a document the other day. I don't even know if the office has a fax machine, let alone how to use it

[@mattcysiewski111]

still use a pager at work

[@scottwarwick7514]

Landline telephones are still used all over the place in business settings

[@ktkat1949]

I always laugh when I read comments from young people making comments about how old the technology is. Wait until you are walking in a museum in the future and see displayed the device you are currently using. Believe me that will be a shock to you!

[@derekrobinson5259]

I always wondered who the first person was to buy a fax. I wondered if they bought 2 just so they worked? lol

[@studinthemaking]

William Stephenson invented a way to transmit a photo by radio after WW1 and made a fortune from it!

[@robertharris6092]

I just got an efax ad before this vid. lol

[@Marcus51090]

*I’d like to find out if that’s a set or your flat/apartment..... I like the exposed brick* 🧱

[@josephdadey]

Oddly enough, Fax is still a huge thing, and even odder, it's my livelihood.

[@EffectPlaceboThe]

our foreign friend (I'm in USA) forwarded fax facts for fun facts. (three times fast) Peace ☮

[@tiamta]

our foreign friend forward fax facts fast for fun fast facts (shhh i know its really quickly )

[@irocz72]

What about the Telex?

[@geoffjones5421]

Why use the Model T as an example? The model T was not the first car by a long way, it was cheap and nasty (and yes I have driven one), it was NOT the first to be made on a moving production line and was available in more than one colour. So what is the sense of making out it was the first of anything when it clearly was not?

[@hoangtran4736]

i didn't know youtube counted upload time in seconds.

[@NotHPotter]

Is TIFO a fan of Veritasium? Very neat.

[@alfonsoflorio]

THE REAL STEAMPUNK lol