Do you have an unquenchable thirst for fax machine history? Then you’ve come to the right place. Here is a short timeline history of the fax machine:
1843 – Alexander Bain, a Scottish clock maker living in London, patented the first facsimile machine. Unlike some of his other inventions, his machine never reached the market.
1863 – Abbé Giovanni Caselli’s Pantelegraph system was introduced when he began the first commercial telegraph communication system linking Paris and Lyon.
1904 – Dr. Arthur Korn transmitted his first long-distance photograph, in 42 minutes, between newspapers in Berlin and Nuremberg.
1925 – The first commercial wirephoto system was introduced and operated by American company AT&T.
1928 – The first Japanese fax system was launched at NEC by Yasujiro Niwa and Masatsugu Kobayashi.
1935 – Associated Press launches the AP Wirephoto service. Picture telegraphy was developed because it provided the rapid transmission of photographs for newspapers with deep pockets. Without it, pictures would need to be hand delivered between locations.
1964 – Xerox introduces their Long Distance Xerography (LDX), the first practical means of transmitting copies between two points using a microwave channel, coaxial cable, or special telephone lines.
1966 – Xerox introduces Magnafax Telecopier, a lighter easier-to-operate fax device.
1980 – CCITT (Consultative Committee for International Telephony and Telegraphy) approves Group 3 standard, which allowed fax machnes to transmit documents on the general switched telephone network, all over the world.
1985 – The first personal computer (PC) integrated with a fax board is introduced by GammaLink.
1997 – Fax machine sales peak in United States.
2000 – Fax machine sales peak in Japan, although they are still more widely used there than anywhere else in the world.
Consider yourself quenched.