Back in the FAX era, there were also Spam faxes. Unwanted advertising from companies you didn't know, that consumer your fax paper without your consent. But there was a nice way to fight back: Tape three sheets of paper together, write "Fax spammers go to hell" on it, fax it back, and while the paper is getting pulled into the machine, tape the top and bottom of the long sheet together, so that it forms a loop. This would become an endless FAX back to the spammer and would empty their paper tray in no time. That was fun back then!
Spam faxes still happen! Local school district just got rid of all their fax machine/laser printers b/c the only thing they'd get were spam; went to a digital fax service.
No computer or software needed! Also remember Fax Machines are fun - like in that one Krautchan video and the Japanese gas station. I have a feeling the person who previously owned this fax machine had died and those first two calls this machine received were just right after they passed away. The 1st one is asking why can't they reach them and the other one is a collection agency.
@ It's still somewhat common where I live. The area code I live in covers a pretty large area, so to some degree, including the area code is unnecessary.
@ Not usually. There are some cell phone numbers that require the area code to be dialed, even if it's the same area code as yours. (If I remember correctly, my cell phone number requires 1- to be dialed at the front.) But the majority of the local numbers I've dialed have only required the last seven digits.
Duncan McOkiner I think mandatory 10-digit dialing only applies when there’s an overlay code. In those cases, your next door neighbor might have a different area code although it’s not long distance. In that case. You have to dial the area code, even if you’re calling your own. In areas where the area codes are still geographically separated, you can still dial 7 digits.
Oh man, you are getting dangerously close to that silver play-button. You absolutely deserve it, i have been a fan of this channel for years now and still haven't seen anything even comparable.
Fax machines sound like dial-up modems some of the time, but with other, strange beeps or warbles mixed in from time to time. Boring recollection worth nothing: Back in the 1990s, some TV shows would put up a title card near the end of the show with contact information, and to emphasize their then-new presence on the Internet, it was not unheard-of for them to _intend_ to play modem sounds during it... but to actually wind up playing fax sounds instead. =D
IIRC, you may find that the "blue" color could not be copied by old school copy machines - something like this would be used in secure situations to make sure unauthorized copies were not made.
Listen to the stepper motor. I worked for the professional fax machine division. We actually built a ipfax machine using a Linux network that sent faxes using email with tiff images attached as the transport mechanism. Never caught on but worked perfectly
WOW !!! I used to work for Panasonic tech service engineer during that period. This model is called KX-F120 in Asia. There is only black color thermal paper. Blue or yellowish printouts is just the thermal paper chemicals has degraded due to heat or humidity
We used to have great fun with fax machines here in Australia. Most common prank was to stick a paper loop into the scanner to completely run the recipient's paper roll out. Later on once inkjet and laser faxes became common, sending 100 black pages would annoy just as much. This was a very cheap prank in Australian metro cities as a fax within the same city would be the cost of an untimed local call, which was 30 or 40 cents in the 1990s. Incidentally the low cost of local calls is also why Australian dial-up ISPs later restricted each session to 4 hours. Companies would use multiple phone lines as cheap data lines by keeping one dial-up session active for months at a time, which only cost 30 or 40 cents per session.
My mom is an insurance agent and she was very excited to see this video since she also uses an old-school, 30-year old Panasonic fax machine for receiving and sending insurance renewal documents and notices from/to commercial clients. In fact she also uses a similar fax model as yours and service it on an annual basis. My mom bought 8 packs of Panasonic batteries from 1991 as a backup power for the fax and it still holds a charge without any leaks - as to not lose her outgoing message that was recorded by her about two decades ago. Despite the heavy use of email, WhatsApp and Telegram these days for transferring digital copies of paper documents, nothing will replace the immortal fax.
7:18 That texture on thermal paper is actually a type of plastic called BPA, an endrocrine disruptor. Wouldn't recommend touching it with your bare hands.
Wow, the old HP logo on the faxback page. Nice to see it still being used for something. I remember when my dad was working at a factory and one of the machines had a breakdown during his day off. We got sent approx 30 pages via fax that day, our Sharp fax machine had the paper coming out at the front. I was having fun unrolling the paper and just fed it down across the flor and over all the furniture in the way.
Wow, that mimeograph blue-purple takes me back to public school in the very early 90s... haven't seen or heard about that technology in about that long! I remember wondering why all our tests in first grade were frickin' purple.
Coming at this a few years late! But this is why I love this channel, whimsical (and informative) takes on stuff that we (us oldies) used to take for granted back in the day. I never forgot my first office job in 1990, I was telling my girlfriend (now wife) about the fax machine, and she just couldn't get how the "paper" was sent "through the wire"!!!
Faxing makes a lot of sense. It's a hell of a lot more secure than sending an email in plain text, and most businesspeople aren't willing to learn to use public key encryption.
@@zyborg47 Japan doesn't seem to like changes if it still benefits them, this is why prices for videos were expensive for years as their distribution model hadn't been changed since the 1800's.
This machine represents the state of technology when it was feasible to replace the OGM tape mechanism with a 30 second digital voice recorder, but not enough to replace a 30 minute incoming analog tape recorder. While today a $3 flash memory chip that doesnt need a backup battery can store several years worth of voice quality recordings.
I have always thought fax machines get too much crap, yes they're outdated technology now but as you say, they're still pretty impressive when you think about it. I used to play around with those old thermal fax machines as a kid, there is certainly something cool about them compared to a modern laser or inkjet multifunction device. These days I just have an HP Officejet connected to a VoIP ATA for the rare occasion I need to fax something.
I work in a pharmacy and we still use fax machines regularly; it's surreal to think about, but with all the regular data breaches and online systems getting hacked, the most secure way to receive medically sensitive information is still a paper fax, go figure.
@@Chriva That's a fair point, it's certainly not perfect, thinking about it a little more; our continued use of them could have more to do with outdated/old fashioned doctor's offices then security.
I can easily tap into your phone system, and record all fax transmissions you receive, and send it to a computer. You thinking there's ANY security on a fax machine is just an illusion. I can record it as an MP3 and store it as an audio file, and reconstruct it but I'd probably just decode it there, and turn it into PNG file. I can do that with a $5 raspberry pi zero.
@fuzzywzhe Well then, one day you're a black hatter hacker for leaking into people's personal data, and showing off your coding skills on Linux is rather surprising for being so niche and using it for personal theft. Plus you're replying to a four year old comment, I'd be surprised if they respond.
I have that exact machine. Bought it new almost 30 years ago for $650. I was the New York office of a British company, and when they had design sketches of a new product, I remember having them fax them at the highest resolution possible so I could show it to our dealers. A 20 minute call, back when international calling was expensive! Ah, life before the internet. Looks like you’re missing the orange rod that’s supposed to pass through the middle of the roll to support the paper roll. The yellowing is just because your paper is really old. My message tape still has a message from Tommy Shaw of Styx on it.
what a fantastic machine!i love it! the fact that it is from 1989 and a super cool device puts it in my book as great thing!also finding it in this kind of condition is a real treat!
"Isn't it exciting, watching a fax being sent at 9600 bits per second?" One, I'm glad you didn't say "baud", and two, hell yeah-I haven't watched a fax machine not pre-scan the whole document and send it at its leisure, including having to redial, in so long... The more detail in any given scanline, the more poorly it compresses, and the longer it takes to transmit over the relatively slow modem channel.
I remember when our office got our first machine. It was around 1985 or 86 and was the first year or two of my professional life. (I think we got our first “office productivity” computer, an IBM PS/2 Model 30, not too long after.) We had to go through fax training from the installer once it was in place. Faxes were expensive to send at the time due to the still-prevalent long distance charging model and the financial arrangement under which we got our “free” machine. We were encouraged to be very thrifty with faxes. I never liked faxes and was glad to seem them replaced by scanning. The old thermal paper had the issues you mentioned. I’d liken it to invisible ink. I recently found some old things I’d received by fax many years ago and all I could barely make out were the headers. The content had disappeared. While faxing improved with ink jets and lasers, the process was still problematic. The biggest issue with faxing - even after printing improved - was it created a document management nightmare. Email was on the rise at the same time, and while it eventually became possible to embed faxes in emails, the two generally had two different filing systems in most offices - faxes being the least conveniently retrievable of the two. By the time that situation really started to improve, faxing was already on its way out. I’ll give faxing credit for its place in history as a transitional technology - a bridge to today’s scanning and messaging services, but that’s about it. The best thing about faxing was the day it fell out of favor.
That machine is in great shape. The way the Auto answer works is the answering machine will come on, as soon as the machine detects the fax tone it will start receiving. They did make higher end machines that did have an auto paper cutter built in. There where also several late 80's early 90's fax machines based on the Cannon SX (LaserJet II) mechanism, they where quite large and expensive. The NeXTStep OS also included fax send/receive capability from any application that had printing capability starting in 1990.
We had a white Panasonic fax machine, newer than this one, the messages is recorded into memory, which manually needed to be cleared to be able to receive new messages, it uses a black "ink ribbon"-like technology to print onto regular A/4 paper. We never ever used the copy function of it. Now, it just sitting disconnected in our old house, collecting dust. We not have landline telephone anymore.
My parents bought their first fax machine, a Brother Personal Fax-510 in white back in 1999 and it too was a thermal paper printer a lot like this Panasonic. They never used it very much, but occasionally my parents used it to send documents to their work, doctors, insurance, or whatever. My parents also had a Panasonic cordless phone from 1992 that also used the exact same answering machine system and tape, so this fax machine is strangely nostalgic for me! Great find!!!
My dad likes to tell this story so I'll tell it here since its fax related. He was working for this window company and was asked to send a fax by his boss so his boss gives him the paper to fax, he faxes it then he tells his boss he faxed it and handed him the papers back. His bos then asked him "I thought you faxed it whats this?" my dad had to explain that it sends a copy not the actual paper. I've heard similar stories so I think it seems people in the early days of fax people thought it sent the original copy ?
We once had a client who emailed us a jpeg to print, a photo of his passport, upon giving him the printout, he told our staff her finger was in front of the copy. She had to tell him that finger is on the photo he sent us, its not a photo copy, its a print out
Earlier this year, I had to send a fax using my modern printer that can also work as a fax. It worked, but needless to say it's nowhere near as exciting as this older machine. I love the sound it makes when it's copying (6:24).
11:11 Ah! That reminds me of when my dad had a HP all-in-one with fax functionality back in the mid 2000s, and aside from using it as a copier, as well as a scanner and printer for his NEC Versa M320, he also used the fax functionality, but I'm very sure the manual didn't mention anything about that number as he lives in Asia and the number is most likely only for the US. Even then, I remember the fax feature trying to auto answer during regular phone calls.
I use the HP Faxback service a few times a year at work still. The joys of working in healthcare. Thankfully fax integration in copiers is pretty good these days, and they can usually work as a fax server and route them to email.
When I used to sell office equipment, occasionally I'd get customers with a thick accent and they'd ask me for a "fox machine". I guess that's where the Car Fox came from. Anyway, I LOVE the ending!
I really feel you deserve more subscribers. The quality of this video is outstanding. I was thoroughly entertained all the way through. On a side note the device seems extremely well engineered.
The thermal paper reminds me of a driving citation in NC. Also some restaurants & retail stores use thermal paper for receipts (sheetz). Very informative video. I showed my son and he said it's like an old email. Lol.
For the time the audio quality of the OGM message chip is pretty good. I like the thermal machines better than the inkjet ones for some reason. Thermal printing is pretty neat.
No toners, cartridges or other stuff to go through. If resolution, longevity of the print and color are not a requirement, thermal printing is just so handy, especially for throwaway prints that you only need for a while.
@@alessandroceloria I would use this to print cheat codes for video games and then just throw them out when they fade because I would memorize them. That and console commands for Half Life 2.
We found a Brother fax machine at Curby's - the door to door discount superstore - sometime in the early '90s. Got some use out of it faxing resumés. Retired it maybe a decade ago.
I remember when me and my dad had to send an insurance binder through fax to our states DMV head office. We went to a local copy and fax shop.... took over an hour to fax everything. If we drove to the office we could’ve been more than half way there at that point.
I used to do subcontracting work for this company that required us to fax in our paperwork each week. I used to use a program called winfax and that was a great program. You would scan paperwork into your computer and fax the file to the company. I also had a fax switch that would listen to incoming phone calls and it would hear that special ring that the phone company would give you for your second phone number, and direct the fax to the computer.
Last time I used a fax was around 2000. I was listening to the radio and they were doing a contest to win a VHS copy of The Phantom Menace and a set of figures from the movie... You had to send a fax with the right answer to the question: Name the icy planet that appeared on Empire Strikes Back. I wrote my name, address and the answer and later that day, got a call from the radio station, saying that I won the contest.
I miss my dial in server and small PBX setup 😩 was great for playing with modems, answering machines, old telephones and fax machines without using the phone line.
Thanks for going in detail on how a fax machine works! No one does that and a lot of us know these things, but never owned one or used one before and this is history that tech enthusiasts need to know.
I recently set up an internal home phone network with a few Linksys ATAs and a PBX running on a Raspberry Pi, I got a dial-up server running on an XP machine so I got the dial-up experience back but now I might have to get a couple of fax machines to test that out as well!
The FAX has been my default document transmission method for decades, and still is today! I still can't understand why the big mass gets attracted with more complicated and troublesome document scanning and e-mail PDFs that don't always display right on your computer, which you need to have as well. I continue to admire the inventor of the FAX, and enjoy the magic of just humanly memorizing a phone (Fax) number, inserting a document into the feeder, dial that number, cross my arms and listen/watch the machine work, while thinking the person at the other end just needs to pick up his document without any other hassle! Yeah, you need to be smart enough to do this on your own, and have enough memory to remember any number you repeatedly use. So please ditch any unreliable smartphone with crappy audio, get yourself a real phone line, the FAX machine, and get ready to save time while keeping your brain from being driven away by those useless "apps". I'm proud to live smartphone-free, and being able to do tasks of my daily life by myself, and *really* the way I want to, rather than the way a stupid cell phone tries to make me doing it... NICE VIDEO!!! Keep the good work!
I'm blown away that I pay 800 /yr to e-scribe RXs. Nevermind I have to sign in and authenticate. Step 1. Check fed data base. Talk to my patient and send it to their exact pharmacy. I have a clicker that makes a 10 sec password. But No they dont want to call me. The RX software company has a not real fax number. I'm gonna have to decide on a 600 laser color that might not fax unless I set up a server. Dont want my tower running to get faxes.
The EMAIL has been my default document transmission method for decades, and still is today! I still can't understand why the big mass gets attracted with more complicated and troublesome fax machines and landline telephones that don't always display right on paper, which you need to have as well. I continue to admire the inventor of the EMAIL, and enjoy the magic of just humanly memorizing an (email) address, attaching a pdf document to my message, write said message, click send, cross my arms and listen/watch the internet work its magic, while thinking the person at the other end just needs to pick up their smartphone or laptop without any other hassle! Yeah, you need to be smart enough to do this on your own, and have enough memory to remember any email address you repeatedly use. So please ditch any unreliable fax machine with crappy image quality, get yourself a real smartphone such as an iPHONE, and get ready to save time while keeping your brain from being driven away by those annoying fax "noises" (if you can even call them that). I'm proud to live fax-free, and being able to do tasks of my daily life by myself, and really the way I want to, rather than the way a stupid fax tries to make me doing it... NICE VIDEO!!! Keep the good work!
@@tominoccic6415 The fact you're not even able to build your own sentences, by barely just copying my original text and plugging in words proves how weak your human skills have become. That's so pitiful.
I really don't understand. Why are Fax machines "dated" technology? They seem pretty cool to me and I don't know anything that's faster when it comes to getting and receiving documents when time is of the essences. I guess sending and printing an email attached document? But Fax seems faster.
It really _is_ impressive. We had a machine identical to that one, but in black. Somewhere out in the garage is an early Canon fax machine that also prints thermally, though it uses a ribbon and plain paper on a roll. It weighs about as much as a car. I saved it mainly because after sitting without power for four years or so, the clock was still dead on accurate when I plugged it in! I wonder what it would do now? I've never seen any other print color from thermal paper than black. It'd be interesting to know if other colors were offered, or if that stuff just destabilized over the years. Probably the most interesting thing I've seen in a fax machine showed up in one made by HP: they used the rather under appreciated Intel 960 CPU!
Here in the UK (not sure about anywhere else), Faxes are still used but in complete private. It’s mostly still used in document-type jobs and confidential papers for transfer, so for a hospital or government thing.
I still think of fax machines are a kind of magic (even though I know how it works). There was a program called "The Secret Life of Machines " back in the late 80s on British TV that had an episode about about fax machines. This showed how they worked, including making their own for demonstration purposes. I must note that this program is peculiarly British! ua-cam.com/video/f1qE0wFsVpw/v-deo.html
What a fascinating video and how interesting it was to see one of these relics still in action! I've actually never seen a fax machine working, other than when I went to my Mum's office one day and we received some spam. I'd be very interesting to see if you, or anyone else in the comments, knows how secure faxing is. As we know, there are growing concerns over the security of email and other messaging options on the internet. It would be great to know how one would intercept a fax without being the intended recipient. Many thanks for the great video and take care. All the best from the UK! :)
Sending a fax is technically not secure since the information being transmited is not encrypted. But someone would need to tap your phone line and catch it exactly while it is being sent in order to gain access to it, unlike e-mails and other information which is stored online and could be hacked at any time.
@@vwestlife I guess the difference between fax and email is that fax has security by obscurity. It's not inherently secure, but someone would have to be aware that you're sending a fax and to what number that fax is being sent. Thanks for the message, it was very interesting. :) Take care and all the best.
Nowadays it's hard to buy a printer without getting a scanner and fax machine as well. It's hard to say how long they'll stick around since it's easy enough to scan and e-mail documents. You can use a dial-up modem on a computer to send and receive faxes, with the right software. But it's usually easier to use a networked machine to send from the PC.
I remember when I was little, every time my mom need to fax important documents, she'd go to a 7-11 and ask store employee to help her, because fax machines isn't that common in my town back at 90s, you can only find them in store for people pay to use, and none of us know how it works. Last year I had to fax some paper to my insurance agent, I do the same thing like my mom used to, find a store and pay for help... feel kinda embarrassed for ask help of such basic stuff. I was dumb enough to think that fax is send paper through the printer because that's what I thought when I was a kid. Thank you for the video, finally get to know how fax machines work.😂😂
BlackBerry BB10 had full fax capability in a modern smartphone similar to text messaging. It was weird but worked perfectly every time. Someone should make a pocket fax machine for a smartphone that acts like a Bluetooth headset on a phone call to send and retrieve. Then the documents can be managed like any standard WiFi printer with a app. This isn’t rocket science and for the handful of people out there that absolutely need to fax on their phone they don’t have to pay out the nose for apps that hardly work right.
Nice 'simple' machine from 1989. The Sharp fax machine we bought had a 'polling feature' we understood it, but we never used it, a feature that went over people's heads. Later we bought plain paper Panasonic machines, much more user friendly. No more curling paper or yellow print outs. 😀
This is ace I used to have to send fax to the warranted company when I worked on the sound and vision department in a store but I never saw them fax back haha.
Ugh. I worked for an Internet service provider from 1996 to 1998, where we couldn't do anything for a customer without a snailmail or a fax, and we had this cheap thermal fax. When it died, the office manager was too cheap to buy one that printed on plain paper... in spite of the ongoing efforts to photocopy filed customer faxes onto plain paper before they faded into total illegibility, with a photocopier that wasn't designed for anything _like_ the workload we put through it and broke down 3-4 times a week, but hey, service was free as part of the contract, so who cares, right? 💢😡💢 But for the record, I don't recall faxes _yellowing._
14:40 you can take a photo of the document, send it via messenger or whatever, and the receiver can almost instantly print it provided they have access to a printer which supports airprint, so yes, you can do that on a smartphone sort of.
Actually iam really impressed with the quality! Its really good for a fax machine! I have saw much worse results in newer fax machines, even laser ones! Not on copy mode, but when receiving faxes.
I remember these. Can you still get the paper for them? Interesting it still works. Electronics were still being quality built back then, but not anymore. I agree with you that this was pretty cool back in the day and still is. Over time, we later started faxing using scanners and Winfax, and now it's web based. FAX is still a great piece of technology even in the age of smartphones and will probably be with us for a good while.
Back in the FAX era, there were also Spam faxes. Unwanted advertising from companies you didn't know, that consumer your fax paper without your consent. But there was a nice way to fight back: Tape three sheets of paper together, write "Fax spammers go to hell" on it, fax it back, and while the paper is getting pulled into the machine, tape the top and bottom of the long sheet together, so that it forms a loop. This would become an endless FAX back to the spammer and would empty their paper tray in no time. That was fun back then!
That sounds real badass, the look on the scammer's face would be priceless thinking it's cursed.
@@lovelyheiferdevwhat about the premium phone number scam?
Spam faxes still happen! Local school district just got rid of all their fax machine/laser printers b/c the only thing they'd get were spam; went to a digital fax service.
No computer or software needed! Also remember Fax Machines are fun - like in that one Krautchan video and the Japanese gas station.
I have a feeling the person who previously owned this fax machine had died and those first two calls this machine received were just right after they passed away. The 1st one is asking why can't they reach them and the other one is a collection agency.
Creepy.
Nice theory though.
4:35
30 years later, this man would end up getting doxed by a Westlife fan's UA-cam channel.
@ It's still somewhat common where I live. The area code I live in covers a pretty large area, so to some degree, including the area code is unnecessary.
@ Not usually. There are some cell phone numbers that require the area code to be dialed, even if it's the same area code as yours. (If I remember correctly, my cell phone number requires 1- to be dialed at the front.) But the majority of the local numbers I've dialed have only required the last seven digits.
Duncan McOkiner I think mandatory 10-digit dialing only applies when there’s an overlay code. In those cases, your next door neighbor might have a different area code although it’s not long distance. In that case. You have to dial the area code, even if you’re calling your own.
In areas where the area codes are still geographically separated, you can still dial 7 digits.
Oh man, you are getting dangerously close to that silver play-button. You absolutely deserve it, i have been a fan of this channel for years now and still haven't seen anything even comparable.
is crazy.. i don't understand why this channel have so few subscribers
My employer still uses Fax machines. It just amuses me every time I hear it fire up with that classic dial up modem sound.
Fax machines sound like dial-up modems some of the time, but with other, strange beeps or warbles mixed in from time to time.
Boring recollection worth nothing: Back in the 1990s, some TV shows would put up a title card near the end of the show with contact information, and to emphasize their then-new presence on the Internet, it was not unheard-of for them to _intend_ to play modem sounds during it... but to actually wind up playing fax sounds instead. =D
Most of the time when I'm in my primary doctors office, I often can hear a fax machine being used.
the reason is because it can be considered a legal document over a secured format
IIRC, you may find that the "blue" color could not be copied by old school copy machines - something like this would be used in secure situations to make sure unauthorized copies were not made.
You found a nice old model. And I still use fax machines here for certain documents in year 2021..
Listen to the stepper motor. I worked for the professional fax machine division. We actually built a ipfax machine using a Linux network that sent faxes using email with tiff images attached as the transport mechanism. Never caught on but worked perfectly
WOW !!! I used to work for Panasonic tech service engineer during that period.
This model is called KX-F120 in Asia.
There is only black color thermal paper.
Blue or yellowish printouts is just the thermal paper chemicals has degraded due to heat or humidity
Blue is a legit thermal paper, some chains of fuel stations use blue here
We used to have great fun with fax machines here in Australia.
Most common prank was to stick a paper loop into the scanner to completely run the recipient's paper roll out.
Later on once inkjet and laser faxes became common, sending 100 black pages would annoy just as much.
This was a very cheap prank in Australian metro cities as a fax within the same city would be the cost of an untimed local call, which was 30 or 40 cents in the 1990s.
Incidentally the low cost of local calls is also why Australian dial-up ISPs later restricted each session to 4 hours. Companies would use multiple phone lines as cheap data lines by keeping one dial-up session active for months at a time, which only cost 30 or 40 cents per session.
My mom is an insurance agent and she was very excited to see this video since she also uses an old-school, 30-year old Panasonic fax machine for receiving and sending insurance renewal documents and notices from/to commercial clients.
In fact she also uses a similar fax model as yours and service it on an annual basis. My mom bought 8 packs of Panasonic batteries from 1991 as a backup power for the fax and it still holds a charge without any leaks - as to not lose her outgoing message that was recorded by her about two decades ago. Despite the heavy use of email, WhatsApp and Telegram these days for transferring digital copies of paper documents, nothing will replace the immortal fax.
7:18 That texture on thermal paper is actually a type of plastic called BPA, an endrocrine disruptor. Wouldn't recommend touching it with your bare hands.
I did my second divorce in 2005 using a fax machine.
Nice
Godlike...
If you are a man, I feel bad for you.
Not a thing you should brag about.
You nailed it. Fax is legal document. Stupid text has no security but nobody will listen to me.
My 9 year old asked me what a fax machine was so I had to show him this.
surprised your kid even heard the word "Fax Machine"
Oh the shiny roll of thermal FAX paper... The memories! Nice thrift find!
I LOVE that clicking mechanical sound it makes while scanning the fax. Brings back OLD memories.
Wow, the old HP logo on the faxback page. Nice to see it still being used for something.
I remember when my dad was working at a factory and one of the machines had a breakdown during his day off. We got sent approx 30 pages via fax that day, our Sharp fax machine had the paper coming out at the front. I was having fun unrolling the paper and just fed it down across the flor and over all the furniture in the way.
Some of the older Noka Symbian 3rd Phones, where you could install Apps and Games, could send/receive Fax via GSM if you connected them to the PC.
I think the most remarkable thing about the fax machine is _how long ago_ it was invented. 😸
wasn't it the 60's, 50s?
@@ravengurlxx1043 The *_1860s._*
@@Ice_Karma ......*what*
Wow, that mimeograph blue-purple takes me back to public school in the very early 90s... haven't seen or heard about that technology in about that long! I remember wondering why all our tests in first grade were frickin' purple.
Coming at this a few years late! But this is why I love this channel, whimsical (and informative) takes on stuff that we (us oldies) used to take for granted back in the day. I never forgot my first office job in 1990, I was telling my girlfriend (now wife) about the fax machine, and she just couldn't get how the "paper" was sent "through the wire"!!!
Fax is older than telephony technically which makes it even more amazing.
In Japan fax machines are still king.
Glad they are!
Faxing makes a lot of sense. It's a hell of a lot more secure than sending an email in plain text, and most businesspeople aren't willing to learn to use public key encryption.
Now that is a shock, i thought they would be up to date.
@@zyborg47 Japan doesn't seem to like changes if it still benefits them, this is why prices for videos were expensive for years as their distribution model hadn't been changed since the 1800's.
@@compyislife if fax is sent through internet, UNLIKE the one showed in the video, yes. the telephone line fax is completely unprotected.
"Is it exciting to watch a fax being sent?" - Honestly, it is. Last time I saw a fax being sent or received, was about 18 years ago, if not more :)
This machine represents the state of technology when it was feasible to replace the OGM tape mechanism with a 30 second digital voice recorder, but not enough to replace a 30 minute incoming analog tape recorder. While today a $3 flash memory chip that doesnt need a backup battery can store several years worth of voice quality recordings.
That's a slick machine. I quite enjoy the flatulent noises it makes.
I have always thought fax machines get too much crap, yes they're outdated technology now but as you say, they're still pretty impressive when you think about it. I used to play around with those old thermal fax machines as a kid, there is certainly something cool about them compared to a modern laser or inkjet multifunction device. These days I just have an HP Officejet connected to a VoIP ATA for the rare occasion I need to fax something.
I work in a pharmacy and we still use fax machines regularly; it's surreal to think about, but with all the regular data breaches and online systems getting hacked, the most secure way to receive medically sensitive information is still a paper fax, go figure.
Yeah, you just have to tap into the line and it's sent in plain text or slightly compressed. "secure" lol
@@Chriva That's a fair point, it's certainly not perfect, thinking about it a little more; our continued use of them could have more to do with outdated/old fashioned doctor's offices then security.
I can easily tap into your phone system, and record all fax transmissions you receive, and send it to a computer. You thinking there's ANY security on a fax machine is just an illusion. I can record it as an MP3 and store it as an audio file, and reconstruct it but I'd probably just decode it there, and turn it into PNG file. I can do that with a $5 raspberry pi zero.
@fuzzywzhe
Well then, one day you're a black hatter hacker for leaking into people's personal data, and showing off your coding skills on Linux is rather surprising for being so niche and using it for personal theft.
Plus you're replying to a four year old comment, I'd be surprised if they respond.
@@fuzzywzheAren't you the guy who started the argument on The 8-Bit Guy's Compaq Portable video?
I have that exact machine. Bought it new almost 30 years ago for $650. I was the New York office of a British company, and when they had design sketches of a new product, I remember having them fax them at the highest resolution possible so I could show it to our dealers. A 20 minute call, back when international calling was expensive! Ah, life before the internet. Looks like you’re missing the orange rod that’s supposed to pass through the middle of the roll to support the paper roll. The yellowing is just because your paper is really old. My message tape still has a message from Tommy Shaw of Styx on it.
Damn that's cool.
I love the paper stretching sound.
what a fantastic machine!i love it! the fact that it is from 1989 and a super cool device puts it in my book as great thing!also finding it in this kind of condition is a real treat!
"Isn't it exciting, watching a fax being sent at 9600 bits per second?" One, I'm glad you didn't say "baud", and two, hell yeah-I haven't watched a fax machine not pre-scan the whole document and send it at its leisure, including having to redial, in so long... The more detail in any given scanline, the more poorly it compresses, and the longer it takes to transmit over the relatively slow modem channel.
I remember when our office got our first machine. It was around 1985 or 86 and was the first year or two of my professional life. (I think we got our first “office productivity” computer, an IBM PS/2 Model 30, not too long after.) We had to go through fax training from the installer once it was in place. Faxes were expensive to send at the time due to the still-prevalent long distance charging model and the financial arrangement under which we got our “free” machine. We were encouraged to be very thrifty with faxes.
I never liked faxes and was glad to seem them replaced by scanning. The old thermal paper had the issues you mentioned. I’d liken it to invisible ink. I recently found some old things I’d received by fax many years ago and all I could barely make out were the headers. The content had disappeared. While faxing improved with ink jets and lasers, the process was still problematic.
The biggest issue with faxing - even after printing improved - was it created a document management nightmare. Email was on the rise at the same time, and while it eventually became possible to embed faxes in emails, the two generally had two different filing systems in most offices - faxes being the least conveniently retrievable of the two. By the time that situation really started to improve, faxing was already on its way out.
I’ll give faxing credit for its place in history as a transitional technology - a bridge to today’s scanning and messaging services, but that’s about it. The best thing about faxing was the day it fell out of favor.
That's a lot of tech going on, considering its size!
Also, the noises it makes is like ASMR
That machine is in great shape. The way the Auto answer works is the answering machine will come on, as soon as the machine detects the fax tone it will start receiving. They did make higher end machines that did have an auto paper cutter built in. There where also several late 80's early 90's fax machines based on the Cannon SX (LaserJet II) mechanism, they where quite large and expensive. The NeXTStep OS also included fax send/receive capability from any application that had printing capability starting in 1990.
We had a white Panasonic fax machine, newer than this one, the messages is recorded into memory, which manually needed to be cleared to be able to receive new messages, it uses a black "ink ribbon"-like technology to print onto regular A/4 paper. We never ever used the copy function of it. Now, it just sitting disconnected in our old house, collecting dust. We not have landline telephone anymore.
I do scanning for a living and it's a big pain in the ass trying to digitize faded out fax paper from 30+ years ago
4:14 sounds like people still had a local accent in 1989.
This sounded like an Asian accent of some sort to me.
@@TheBcoolGuy To me it sounded like a south jersey accent lol
My parents bought their first fax machine, a Brother Personal Fax-510 in white back in 1999 and it too was a thermal paper printer a lot like this Panasonic. They never used it very much, but occasionally my parents used it to send documents to their work, doctors, insurance, or whatever. My parents also had a Panasonic cordless phone from 1992 that also used the exact same answering machine system and tape, so this fax machine is strangely nostalgic for me! Great find!!!
My dad likes to tell this story so I'll tell it here since its fax related. He was working for this window company and was asked to send a fax by his boss so his boss gives him the paper to fax, he faxes it then he tells his boss he faxed it and handed him the papers back. His bos then asked him "I thought you faxed it whats this?" my dad had to explain that it sends a copy not the actual paper. I've heard similar stories so I think it seems people in the early days of fax people thought it sent the original copy ?
Jess Hull ahahha thats crazy. Squeezing a physical paper trought phone line 😂
We once had a client who emailed us a jpeg to print, a photo of his passport, upon giving him the printout, he told our staff her finger was in front of the copy. She had to tell him that finger is on the photo he sent us, its not a photo copy, its a print out
Earlier this year, I had to send a fax using my modern printer that can also work as a fax. It worked, but needless to say it's nowhere near as exciting as this older machine. I love the sound it makes when it's copying (6:24).
Hooray for old school thermal paper! There's nothing quite like a piece of paper thickly coated in hormone disrupting Bisphenol A !
11:11 Ah! That reminds me of when my dad had a HP all-in-one with fax functionality back in the mid 2000s, and aside from using it as a copier, as well as a scanner and printer for his NEC Versa M320, he also used the fax functionality, but I'm very sure the manual didn't mention anything about that number as he lives in Asia and the number is most likely only for the US. Even then, I remember the fax feature trying to auto answer during regular phone calls.
"READ MY FAX! YOU'RE FIRED!
Back to the Future part 2
Now all we need is for the Double Tie to come into fashion
I use the HP Faxback service a few times a year at work still. The joys of working in healthcare. Thankfully fax integration in copiers is pretty good these days, and they can usually work as a fax server and route them to email.
When I used to sell office equipment, occasionally I'd get customers with a thick accent and they'd ask me for a "fox machine". I guess that's where the Car Fox came from.
Anyway, I LOVE the ending!
Junk faxes were the worst because you had to pay for the paper. Removing the paper was not an option, as the memory would just store the documents!
I work in a government office, and we still get junk faxes. Like spam email except old-school lol
This video was genuinely fascinating, even though I have used FAX machines in the 1990s myself. Another great video!
I really feel you deserve more subscribers. The quality of this video is outstanding. I was thoroughly entertained all the way through.
On a side note the device seems extremely well engineered.
You would probably get a kick out of sending something to faxtoy.net :)
The thermal paper reminds me of a driving citation in NC. Also some restaurants & retail stores use thermal paper for receipts (sheetz). Very informative video. I showed my son and he said it's like an old email. Lol.
For the time the audio quality of the OGM message chip is pretty good. I like the thermal machines better than the inkjet ones for some reason. Thermal printing is pretty neat.
No toners, cartridges or other stuff to go through. If resolution, longevity of the print and color are not a requirement, thermal printing is just so handy, especially for throwaway prints that you only need for a while.
@@alessandroceloria I would use this to print cheat codes for video games and then just throw them out when they fade because I would memorize them. That and console commands for Half Life 2.
We found a Brother fax machine at Curby's - the door to door discount superstore - sometime in the early '90s. Got some use out of it faxing resumés. Retired it maybe a decade ago.
I remember when me and my dad had to send an insurance binder through fax to our states DMV head office. We went to a local copy and fax shop.... took over an hour to fax everything. If we drove to the office we could’ve been more than half way there at that point.
I used to do subcontracting work for this company that required us to fax in our paperwork each week. I used to use a program called winfax and that was a great program. You would scan paperwork into your computer and fax the file to the company. I also had a fax switch that would listen to incoming phone calls and it would hear that special ring that the phone company would give you for your second phone number, and direct the fax to the computer.
7:33 its like a grocery store receipt paper. Slightly glossy/smoothish
Last time I used a fax was around 2000. I was listening to the radio and they were doing a contest to win a VHS copy of The Phantom Menace and a set of figures from the movie... You had to send a fax with the right answer to the question: Name the icy planet that appeared on Empire Strikes Back. I wrote my name, address and the answer and later that day, got a call from the radio station, saying that I won the contest.
I miss my dial in server and small PBX setup 😩 was great for playing with modems, answering machines, old telephones and fax machines without using the phone line.
Have you ever tried listening to the transmission itself as it goes through the phone line? What does it sound like?
Thanks for going in detail on how a fax machine works! No one does that and a lot of us know these things, but never owned one or used one before and this is history that tech enthusiasts need to know.
Fascinating video! Thanks!
1:01 Akbkuku is that you? :)
lol _"This..."_
@@amirpourghoureiyan1637 Watched his latest video a while ago, and -This- makes so much sense to me doing a side by side comp :D
Doug de Muro
I recently set up an internal home phone network with a few Linksys ATAs and a PBX running on a Raspberry Pi, I got a dial-up server running on an XP machine so I got the dial-up experience back but now I might have to get a couple of fax machines to test that out as well!
The FAX has been my default document transmission method for decades, and still is today! I still can't understand why the big mass gets attracted with more complicated and troublesome document scanning and e-mail PDFs that don't always display right on your computer, which you need to have as well. I continue to admire the inventor of the FAX, and enjoy the magic of just humanly memorizing a phone (Fax) number, inserting a document into the feeder, dial that number, cross my arms and listen/watch the machine work, while thinking the person at the other end just needs to pick up his document without any other hassle! Yeah, you need to be smart enough to do this on your own, and have enough memory to remember any number you repeatedly use. So please ditch any unreliable smartphone with crappy audio, get yourself a real phone line, the FAX machine, and get ready to save time while keeping your brain from being driven away by those useless "apps".
I'm proud to live smartphone-free, and being able to do tasks of my daily life by myself, and *really* the way I want to, rather than the way a stupid cell phone tries to make me doing it...
NICE VIDEO!!! Keep the good work!
I'm blown away that I pay 800 /yr to e-scribe RXs. Nevermind I have to sign in and authenticate. Step 1. Check fed data base. Talk to my patient and send it to their exact pharmacy. I have a clicker that makes a 10 sec password. But No they dont want to call me. The RX software company has a not real fax number. I'm gonna have to decide on a 600 laser color that might not fax unless I set up a server. Dont want my tower running to get faxes.
That chemical smell is cancer fuel btw.
The EMAIL has been my default document transmission method for decades, and still is today!
I still can't understand why the big mass gets attracted with more complicated and troublesome fax machines and landline telephones that don't always display right on paper, which you need to have as well. I continue to admire the inventor of the EMAIL, and enjoy the magic of just humanly memorizing an (email) address, attaching a pdf document to my message, write said message, click send, cross my arms and listen/watch the internet work its magic, while thinking the person at the other end just needs to pick up their smartphone or laptop without any other hassle! Yeah, you need to be smart enough to do this on your own, and have enough memory to remember any email address you repeatedly use. So please ditch any unreliable fax machine with crappy image quality, get yourself a real smartphone such as an iPHONE, and get ready to save time while keeping your brain from being driven away by those annoying
fax "noises" (if you can even call them that).
I'm proud to live fax-free, and being able to do tasks of my daily life by myself, and really the way I want to, rather than the way a stupid fax tries to make me doing it...
NICE VIDEO!!! Keep the good work!
@@tominoccic6415 The fact you're not even able to build your own sentences, by barely just copying my original text and plugging in words proves how weak your human skills have become. That's so pitiful.
I really don't understand. Why are Fax machines "dated" technology? They seem pretty cool to me and I don't know anything that's faster when it comes to getting and receiving documents when time is of the essences. I guess sending and printing an email attached document? But Fax seems faster.
It really _is_ impressive. We had a machine identical to that one, but in black. Somewhere out in the garage is an early Canon fax machine that also prints thermally, though it uses a ribbon and plain paper on a roll. It weighs about as much as a car. I saved it mainly because after sitting without power for four years or so, the clock was still dead on accurate when I plugged it in! I wonder what it would do now?
I've never seen any other print color from thermal paper than black. It'd be interesting to know if other colors were offered, or if that stuff just destabilized over the years.
Probably the most interesting thing I've seen in a fax machine showed up in one made by HP: they used the rather under appreciated Intel 960 CPU!
Here in the UK (not sure about anywhere else), Faxes are still used but in complete private. It’s mostly still used in document-type jobs and confidential papers for transfer, so for a hospital or government thing.
In aviation we use FAXes for urgent message delivery, without the necessary steps that an email entails.
I still think of fax machines are a kind of magic (even though I know how it works).
There was a program called "The Secret Life of Machines " back in the late 80s on British TV that had an episode about about fax machines. This showed how they worked, including making their own for demonstration purposes. I must note that this program is peculiarly British!
ua-cam.com/video/f1qE0wFsVpw/v-deo.html
What a fascinating video and how interesting it was to see one of these relics still in action! I've actually never seen a fax machine working, other than when I went to my Mum's office one day and we received some spam. I'd be very interesting to see if you, or anyone else in the comments, knows how secure faxing is. As we know, there are growing concerns over the security of email and other messaging options on the internet. It would be great to know how one would intercept a fax without being the intended recipient. Many thanks for the great video and take care. All the best from the UK! :)
Sending a fax is technically not secure since the information being transmited is not encrypted. But someone would need to tap your phone line and catch it exactly while it is being sent in order to gain access to it, unlike e-mails and other information which is stored online and could be hacked at any time.
@@vwestlife I guess the difference between fax and email is that fax has security by obscurity. It's not inherently secure, but someone would have to be aware that you're sending a fax and to what number that fax is being sent. Thanks for the message, it was very interesting. :) Take care and all the best.
@@vwestlife I wonder if technologies like teletype still work? That would make an interesting video, for sure!
Nowadays it's hard to buy a printer without getting a scanner and fax machine as well. It's hard to say how long they'll stick around since it's easy enough to scan and e-mail documents.
You can use a dial-up modem on a computer to send and receive faxes, with the right software. But it's usually easier to use a networked machine to send from the PC.
I remember when companies advertised their their fax number as a modern way to contact customer services
You know what the future version of this and mail is going to be? 3D printing packages!
I remember when I was little, every time my mom need to fax important documents, she'd go to a 7-11 and ask store employee to help her, because fax machines isn't that common in my town back at 90s, you can only find them in store for people pay to use, and none of us know how it works. Last year I had to fax some paper to my insurance agent, I do the same thing like my mom used to, find a store and pay for help... feel kinda embarrassed for ask help of such basic stuff. I was dumb enough to think that fax is send paper through the printer because that's what I thought when I was a kid. Thank you for the video, finally get to know how fax machines work.😂😂
BlackBerry BB10 had full fax capability in a modern smartphone similar to text messaging. It was weird but worked perfectly every time.
Someone should make a pocket fax machine for a smartphone that acts like a Bluetooth headset on a phone call to send and retrieve. Then the documents can be managed like any standard WiFi printer with a app. This isn’t rocket science and for the handful of people out there that absolutely need to fax on their phone they don’t have to pay out the nose for apps that hardly work right.
i loved the idea that you could draw on paper and fax it as a kid, really thought that was cool
They also still make fax machines that that work with thermal transfers paper like this Brother FAX-575
Nice 'simple' machine from 1989. The Sharp fax machine we bought had a 'polling feature' we understood it, but we never used it, a feature that went over people's heads. Later we bought plain paper Panasonic machines, much more user friendly. No more curling paper or yellow print outs. 😀
This is ace I used to have to send fax to the warranted company when I worked on the sound and vision department in a store but I never saw them fax back haha.
I agree, these machines are still very interesting to me even with the technology we have now. These have been around since the 1800's!
this is the first time i've seen a fax machine receive a fax.
Even the community of Deadwood knew fax machines were going the way of the telegraph...
Ugh. I worked for an Internet service provider from 1996 to 1998, where we couldn't do anything for a customer without a snailmail or a fax, and we had this cheap thermal fax. When it died, the office manager was too cheap to buy one that printed on plain paper... in spite of the ongoing efforts to photocopy filed customer faxes onto plain paper before they faded into total illegibility, with a photocopier that wasn't designed for anything _like_ the workload we put through it and broke down 3-4 times a week, but hey, service was free as part of the contract, so who cares, right? 💢😡💢 But for the record, I don't recall faxes _yellowing._
Very cool. Great looking machine, sleek, clean lines. I had a Panasonic telephone for 20 years that looked remarkably similar.
14:40 you can take a photo of the document, send it via messenger or whatever, and the receiver can almost instantly print it provided they have access to a printer which supports airprint, so yes, you can do that on a smartphone sort of.
I worked at a truck stop up until a year ago and we would sometimes send & receive 50+ a day.
It makes perfect sense in that line of work
I received a final fax in Aug 2010, stated the department I worked shut downed, due to revenue issue.
Cool video, love a good fax machine.
Cheers for the shoutout in the calculator video way back when!
Only VWestlife could take an article from The Onion and make an educational/informative video about it!
Actually iam really impressed with the quality! Its really good for a fax machine! I have saw much worse results in newer fax machines, even laser ones!
Not on copy mode, but when receiving faxes.
I remember these. Can you still get the paper for them? Interesting it still works. Electronics were still being quality built back then, but not anymore. I agree with you that this was pretty cool back in the day and still is. Over time, we later started faxing using scanners and Winfax, and now it's web based. FAX is still a great piece of technology even in the age of smartphones and will probably be with us for a good while.
I still have one of those FAX with thermo paper but I just used for line phone every 6 months
Such a cool machine. Imagine it costed very much money at that times
I like this videos about random stuff of the past. It's like media-archeology
That is a very nice fax machine you have there.
Err. It's very much possible to send a fax from a smartphone. Tho it's stupid and overly complex to do it that way :P
itunes.apple.com/us/app/genius-fax-fax-pdf-documents/id566504821
Thank you for this amazing video
He protec
He attac
But most important
He fax bacc
A fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached - Abe Simpson.
As always, love your vids :D