What's a Telex?
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- What if I told you we had the ability to text each other in 1933. What?!? Well, before the advent of texting and even before faxing (I’m sure some of you young people are now wondering what a fax was), there was the Telex, which stood for “Telegraph Exchange”. It’s a now long-forgotten technology used mainly by businesses to transmit short messages to each other, kinda like texting, but attached to telephone wires using devices you definitely couldn’t put in your pocket.
One of the few remaining networks today is "I-Telex" which is run by over 100 enthusiasts to maintain this technology. Some of their equipment is shown in this video. If you want to find out more, go to www.i-telex.net/.
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#telex
Errata: I use baud and bitrate as the same thing when they aren't. I'll have to do a video about baud rate!
Also lookup term symbol rate.
Oh, that old pedantic nitpicking. Yeah, there's a difference, but there are cases when the numbers can come out exactly equal. BTW, the definition I was given for baud rate is the one that's the inverse of the shortest nominal duration between transitions. Calculated baud rates only truly differ from calculated bit rate when stop bits are longer than a regular bit duration for asynchronous... Oh and the you could then distinguish between asynchronous and synchronous and the relevance of that. Expect a lot of differing perspectives... like this one.
Another correction, ASCII is 7-bit encoding. There are a lot of region specific encodings which are ASCII compatible, extending ASCII by using the last bit to add all their custom characters. Large parts of Europe for example use/used ISO-8859-1. You sometimes see remains of this 7-bit legacy pop up, see for example the content transfer encoding for email which originally did not support 8-bit.
@@Spillerrec It should also be mentioned that when 7-bit encoding was used, often the eighth bit was used for parity (error correction).
I continue to hear rtty on shortwave. It is encrypted by a system like the US kw-7 which was compromised by the US Navy spy John walker. RTTY had a long history befor satellite communications.
I grew up in a hotel in Wengen (Bernese Oberland, Switzerland). My parents had a telex machine installed in 1964 - one without paper band, only for direct typing. We were the first house in our town providing this service apart from the post office. On the day of the Lauberhorn skiraces there always was a long line (often surpassing 50m) of journalists patiently waiting to pass the results to their editors, as each of them had to type the whole report directly into the machine. And we were mighty proud of this progressive instrument!
"The Telex machine is kept so clean and it types to a waiting world"
And mother feels so shocked, father's world is rocked"
I really wanted to know what a telex machine is just because of this song.
@@linusgke I'm clearly too much of a nerd, I knew what a Telex was, but have never heard this song
Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Mondays
How have I not heard this before?
I remember watching the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and hearing the measured clatter of the Teletype machine in the background throughout the newscast. In older broadcasts, it can even be seen behind him. It was a prop meant to show the modernity and speed of the news organization. My mother worked in an office with several of them, and she used to present me with the small remnants of the paper rolls when they were replaced with new ones. I was easily amused as a child......
Jesus H. Christ those things could spit out paper. Wasn't until later in the life that you could choose what was sent to you.
@@BigDogCountry In the early 80's I supplied my son's nursery with large amounts of used green stripey paper spat out by very large and very noisy printers. My daughter's nursery got boxes of unused green stripey paper as printing had moved on.
@@standard_gauge Did you ever find your baby?
Those teleprinters were standard equipment in every newsroom. I remember the Creed machines at Radio Malaysia, where my dad worked. They were so large, it made their keyboards look tiny.
@@standard_gauge one of my friends dad's worked "in computers" when I started Reception class in 1980 (aged 4) we too got the stripey green paper with the holes down the sides. My mum kept my 'artworks' and it is interesting to look over it and that paper.
not to nitpick but faxing has been around since the late 1800's
True, I should have said it wasn't popularised until much later.
The machines were a little large, though.
One of my favorite trivia questions is “when was the first fax sent”?
Indeed, they were even used in the D Day Landings, fax machines.
Yeah I had a little “huh??” moment when I heard that. The fax machine was invented almost 100 years before the Telex system.
FAX was available widely in the late 1970s as Japan needed "telecopiers" to handle the complex writing system where Telex and TWX couldn't handle it. By the mid 1980s FAX machines were common in the US and EU.
Not only that, radiofax or weather fax as that is still used today is way older and started in the 1930s. So basically the fax is way older and still in use today. fist tests go even back to 1911 over telephone lines.
@@Eken-Eken fax is much much older than that even. The first telefacsimile over telegraph wire tests go back to the 1870s, and as you say, by the 1910s it was being adapted to the telephone network.
I remember seeing text-book descriptions of the first FAX technology. Somebody needs to dig that up.
Faxes connected to PCs, especially Apple Macs with graphics capability, opened up a whole new set of possibilities. Typical fax scanners had very high contrast, optimized for text, but turning photos into murky blobs. Whereas PC-based scanners, just starting to become popular in the latter 1980s, had at least full greyscale support (colour was more expensive). And you could dither those greyscale photo scans down to bilevel dots that faxes required, and send people images that looked like greyscale! Then they’d wonder how you did that.
I believe "Telecopier" was a Xerox term for their machines.
Which I used at work in 1975 (!)
AND, believe it or not, we had drivers, and the production manager would make a decision if sending a FAX (at 4 pages per minute) would be faster vs driving the copy to the customer's office.
Remember, back in the '70s, 4ppm was "standard" and 6ppm was "high speed" FAX.
TWX was pronounced twix. When you dialed a telex number and got connected, you'd send a WRU which would cause the remote machine to reply with its answerback - a stored series of characters containing the remote telex number and customer name. Then you'd send your message, and at the end, you'd send another WRU and if you got the same answerback as at the beginning, that indicated the far end machine received your message completely. TWX lasted so long because it was codified in law as a legally binding communication medium. Banks around the world used telex to transfer funds and make legally binding financial agreements. Shipping companies were another large user of telex.
Those machines made *the best* confetti! My mums work had a telex up till the mid 80s when I was a young lad. The confetti I brought home from emptying their machines was most excellent.
Very small and easily breathed in. Very dangerous and discouraged by most businesses that I encountered here in Australia. I used to service these machines. I also services fax machines, mainframe computers, mini computers, micro computers and all associated peripheral devices. I still tinker and I am able to solve most problems that friends and associates encounter if parts are still available. Most problems are caused by one dee ten tease.
I can imagine your poor mom still bringing you confetti and having to hoover all the house afterwards
The chards from punched paper tape had very sharp edges. There is a well known news story of a bride who was blinded at her wedding when some got in her eye.
IN the US, it was (and still probably is) a federal crime to toss the stuff ...
Chad
You talking about telex reminds me of The Secret Life of Machines show from back in the 80’s! I loved that show! Though I got reruns being that I’m a Yank and all, lol! Thanks for the video
ua-cam.com/video/IaCfs5Xb-EI/v-deo.html
Secret of the FAX Machine
security camera several of Tim’s shows are on UA-cam. It’s such a blast from the past to see them! So much more interesting and entertaining than many of the shows from the last 20 or so years! Thanks for the link!
That show is amazing and the entire series is on UA-cam. Plus Tim is still around making all sorts of weird things.
@@jackkraken3888 hey! Thrilled to see other people talking about such a great man Tim Hunkin, and a great programme, Secret life of machines. And let's not forget the inimitable Rex Garrod!
Jack Kraken yeah I follow Tim’s channel as well!
Great video - I saw a telex at my mom's office in the mid 70s and I, too, very much wanted to play with it and was also prevented from doing so :(
The computer that ran the test equipment I used in the Navy still had a mylar tape reader in it, but no one had used it for a decade. It was installed in the equipment rack near the floor and made a good foot rest. That was '91.
My dad used a telex in the 80s, and the Telex ended somewhere in the 90s.
I worked for BT for 40 years and between 1974 and 1989 I worked in a Telex exchange, very different from a telephone exchange. The signalling was plus and minus 80 volts, you get quite a bite from 160 volts. In the later years they had converters which sent the signals out using tones, SCVF (single channel voice frequency). While I was working there it was virtually all Strowger electromechanical switches but then became electronic exchanges. I worked on the very first electronic exchange in the UK. It was built by Plessey Controls in Poole, Dorset and installed in Fleet Building in London. It was just 1024 lines and had bubble memory to store the OS. I left Telex just as it changed over to fully electronic exchanges.
Fascinating. It was interesting to see the evolution and how the address would later evolve into the dial-up connection codes and then email.
I remember in public school in the 1970s, the school newspaper had a mimeograph and we used that a lot. Maybe the subject of a future video.
On the subject of FAX, watch this scene in the movie “Bullitt”. See how long it takes. It must have been pretty new technology at this time.
ua-cam.com/video/nQGAaCSFlJI/v-deo.html
Fax is way older than you think
It really was amazing technology for the time, we take so much for granted now, but we have come a long way in the past 100 years.
In 2008 I was working for a telecom provider and we had a pretty cool task to build a system for automating setting up phone calls between here and some far far places in Russia. It worked by generating a a certain time (lets say two weeks after current time) and sending it as a message over Telex network. Then the telex message was delivered to the person you wanted to have a call with, and he'd have to go to the nearest post office (which could be hundreds of KMs away) on the time and date mentioned on the Telex. Then the system would automatically call both these numbers and bridge the calls. Since lots of people were deported in 1940s to Siberia, Russia, people still have relatives there who they want to stay in touch with. And turns out telex and automated calling is the easiest way to accomplish that. I don't know if it is still in use today tho.
Thanks for sharing. Amazing how people used these systems!
Dude, that was in 2008? Incredible!
I worked for a vestigial bit of PSA (Peugeot-Citroen) that was a hangover from Rootes and a totally ignored bit of the PSA stable until around 2006.
We still Telex'd orders for parts to Tile Hill for overnight orders well in to the 2000s, it was still going on when I left. VOR and urgent orders had to be made to Tile Hill via the Telex line.
Admittedly it was done on small, 1980s Telex simulators, basically a keyboard and 16x02 display plugged in to the Telex line in the office.
I still remember them, we used it al lot in the 70 and even in the 90's.
Rooms full of women, who wrote letters etc...on they're typewriters...other ones, send message and info by the the telexmachine a cross the World.
Even Warehouse and stock management, been happens and still been done, by Microfiche ore Microfilm....
The good ol' times...and even now, more on some places...more reliable than all computerstuff. ( cos internet isn't available everywhere ).
The place I worked at in the first half of the 90s had a typing pool when I started and I don't think it did when I finished there in 1995. Although others' offices had computers, mine didn't when I started - and when I finished, I had my own e-address. And that's why I finished when I did ! My immediate boss didn't have Internet access, I did - so he had mine blocked - so I left (was only working my redundancy notice in any case - so I earned the same without the travelling expenses !)
2008 ?
*WTF?* Did I hear that right ? WOW !
Yeah, and the Swiss still doing it??!!
@Dave Pawson the swiss probably looked after theirs😏
Interesting ... But only a few slight errors. Take it from someone who personally remembers ...
1. In the infancy of the computer industry, Telex machines were also used as monitors/ control consoles for computers. This lasted until the 1960s when IBM Selectric typewriters, which could be wired with solenoids to automatically press the keys, took over.
2. Although Xerox developed a fax machine in the 1960s, the first commercially successful dial-up fax machine was sold by Quip, a division of Exxon. It became widely available in 1971. It cost about $5,000, and it could transmit an 11 inch long page in under a minute. (Important because long distance calls were charged by the minute.)
Fax hadn’t a lifespan of only 20 years. It became available widely for businesses in the late 80s early 90s indeed but was in use for decades before.
In the movie Bullit from 1968, you can see the police sending documents and the photo of a suspect by fax.
ASCII is not an 8-bit code: it's 7 bits. There are many incompatible 8-bit extensions to ASCII though.
I was about to say the same thing. At 3:10, the narrator says "...ASCII has versions for different countries..." No, there's only one ASCII, and the versions he's talking about are those 8-bit extensions. These days, fortunately, the Unicode character set is in the process of replacing other character encodings.
I remember it was always very nervous to type on a connected line so I personal often pre wrote the message and then connected and sent of the message with the strip with holes. I worked in a bank and messages was always in a foreign language and to other countries. We even had a special department only working with sending these messages. With special code books you could calculate a number to verify that the sender where authentic.
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing.
_devices you definitely can’t put in your pocket_
- Hold my beer...
We demand proof!!
In my first job after school, one of my tasks was sending Telex messages. It felt like the future, at the time.
The Telex machine is kept so clean, As it types to a waiting world... (I Don't Like Monday's by the Boomtown Rats).
First thing I thought!
46132 NGLYEO G. Still imprinted on my mind nearly 40 years on!
Worked on Inmarsat maritime satcoms in the early 90s and those had to implement Telex. It was a pain in the ass to get out systems to integrate with all the various networks around the world. Had to support many different coding schemes and analog connection parameters.
I worked on the Telex system (on customers premises)in central London in the 1960's. The older machines were coded Printer 7B, while the newer ones were the 7E, and the 7E RP (for reperforator). The training to become a Technical Officer on Telex was carried out at the training centre at Stone - Staffordshire. By the time I was trained up these machines were redundant!!!!
The replacement for the tele 7 was the 15, or 444. I trained at Stone as well, on both types.
I've only just learnt about telexes for the first time. I was born in the mid 80s. I knew what faxes were but my mother hadn't heard of the telex either!
Thank you for this video. I'm in Malaysia and this video brings back fond memories of my days as a computer service engineer with Rediffusion Malaya back in the 1980s, who installed and maintained a telex-to-computer, store and forward computer-to-telex interface device called Telexbox made by Data & Control Equipment in the U.K.
About the size of a modem of those days, or about the size of a ream of 500 A4 sheets, the Telexbox had two RS-232 ports at the back, one to connect to the computer and another to connect to a printer and a connector for a 2-wire (single-current) or 4-wire (double-current) telex line. We would configure the Telexbox's identifier and number using a terminal.
The telex operator would prepared a telex message using a text-based word processing software such as WordStar, with a "^" character before the destiination telex at the top, type the message and end with an ending code and then print the message to the Telexbox which would store it in its memory and then proceed to dial up the destination, send the message and clear down, with the interchange and message being printed on the attached printer.
The Telexbox would automatically answer incoming telexes and print them on the printer.
If the operator needed to chat, they would use a terminal emulation software such as Crosstalk on the PC.
Data & Control Equipment subsequently provided us, who were their distributor in Malaysia with a piece of MS-DOS - based software which could perform both functions of word processor and terminal emulator. At some installations we connected the Telebox to minicomputers and perhaps also mainframe computers.
It took us over a year to get the state telecommunications service provider here to type-approve the Telexbox for commercial sale by a private company, since they had a rule that only a telex machine could be connected to the telex line which they provided and they also rented the telex machine with the telex line. However, they eventually decided that they could not hold back the march of technology and type approved the Telexbox.
The Telexbox was pretty quiet but I surely miss the clatter of telex machines and teleprinters.
As for fax, these were introduced into Malaysia in the late 1980s, though they were big and cost between ringgit 8,000 to 10,000 compared to around ringgit 300 plus for a compact, dedicated fax machine today. Yes, we still use fax over here and besides dedicated fax machines, some inkjet or laser printer, scanner and copier devices also include a fax facility , though companies are gradually phasing out their fax machine and increasingly are relying on e-mail, whilst especially small businesses are using massaging services such as WhatsApp to conduct business.
I used to love going to dad’s office and sending telexes for him. When he started working from home we got a tapeless BT Puma somewhat more advanced than the Post Office machines he had before. I remember the international code being 010
I learned to code on a terminal connected to a computer at 300 baud in 1978. Wow how times have changed. I never new what baud meant and never heard of baudot code. Thanks for this video!!!
Interestingly enough, many merchant ships are actually still required to support radio telex via MF/HF frequencies. Most ships I have worked on still have these terminals as they are required under the GMDSS (Global Maritime Distress & Safety System). However, most new builds have redundant satellite comms instead so radiotelex’s days are numbered in this industry as well. It is getting more challenging to get a response when testing the system, though often times I can get replies back from Hong Kong, Perth and Tokyo with some patience. Pretty cool still!
Very interesting article. I worked on Teletype models 15,19,28,29,32,33 and 35 with the Canadian National Telecommunications company from 1970-1974.
I use my smartphone to watch this video and the technology of telex still feels insane to me
When my mom worked for a TV station in Detroit, MI they had one too and I would love to play with the tape. We called it a "Twix" machine for twx it had a rotary dial to place calls. I was about 7 or 8 years back in 1980-82.
5 level paper tape. Had to be able to read that to graduate CTO School in the U.S. Navy.
In the late '70s, I read 6-level TTS paper tape (for Linotype machines) at my job.
Probably if you told any young person you could actually "read" that tape, they wouldn't believe you-but we COULD.
Very interesting to see a concise video on the Telex! I left school & started work in 1985 and was taught how to use the Telex for general messaging and one to one operation. A couple of years later ,my next employer owned a Fax machine , but back then you didn't just chuck A4 or A3 paper in , you had specific "Fax rolls" which were like giant rolls of Izal medicated toilet paper which were slightly yellow and the print would start to fade away after a few days.
Shaun W : Three carbon copies. White along with blue, pink and yellow. :)
Every night shift had to send the days telexes ( unless urgent) and register and distribute incomings accordingly, in the mid 80s the ticker tape had to be archived but I think by 1990 that was defunct. I’m not sure the arrival of fax was a step forward because the TX paper was flat and as long as you had inked ribbons eminently readable
Are you diversifying the channel content?
Not very car related this video (obviously)! 😂
If so, cool! But an idea on diversity is not to just focus on car models, but focus on the history of the brand, or history of cars, history of trucks, biographies on famous car people, what car had the first car phone, radio, satnev, infotainment, bluetooth, etc. The histories of these technologies in cars.
Perhaps talk about the future of cars, self driving, car ownership, electric, car bans in city centres.
Some ideas to diversify the channel for you.
The telex video is a good step in the right direction!
Fax still used a lot by GPs, Doctors etc for letters, referrals because of transmission guarantees and the fact it's immediately printed out and you don't need a PC to read it.
Cos the NHS are a bunch of Luddites !
Being diabetic, I have annual eye scans. I asked them to e-mail me the images.
I got them NHS style - obviously printed on a4, re-scanned, PDFed and then e-mailed ! Crap compared to the decent (but out of focus???) images from the optician !
@@millomweb it's not just the NHS. Many doctors and lawyers do it in the US, too, but not to that extent. Mostly for documents requiring a signature.
Airlines still use Telex. I have use Telex for many years.
You can still hear and decode RTTY signals on HF frequencies such as 10.100 MHz to this day . It runs weather reports from Germany I think.I used to use systems like RTTY ,PSK ,DPSK etc etc on HF frequencies as a hobby. All very interesting
thanks so much for posting I remember 1978 I was working for Liberty Mutual and they had a telex machine it was high tech for 1978!!!
Morse Code lives on in radio communications even in 2020!
The U.S. Navy used a TTY machine and aux's at least up until 1983. I had the job (and training) to work on them, imagine, 360 thousand parts, going in 360 thousand direction and then trying to work on it on a pitching ship!! BTW if anyone would like some training manuals I have most of a complete set!
I used to repair Siemans T100, T150 and T1000 teleprinters as an apprentice around 1987 and 1988. The T100 was not fun to balance when your teacher gave you a "fake" tuning fork that was just off frequency
I have actually chatted between Sweden and Libya over an open telex circuit in 1981-82, so I can confirm that it works. It wasn't cheap or very efficient, but telephoning Libya just didn't work in those days.
My dad and his brother both worked for Bank of America back in the 70's and 80's. My uncle worked overseas, so they would occasionally Telex each other without having to call.
My mom told me about that thing when she was working in an office during the 70s
The Fax machine was invented in 1846, well before the telephone. There was a commercial fax service in 1880. Of course it was not up to the quality and speed standards of the modern Fax machines.
(Actually, fax was around before 1933, but I'm not sure how widely used it was)
Telex was predated by the FAX machine which was invented in 1842, (even before the telephone).
Good video. Wow ..STILL available? Do they still use a shift so they can incluse numbers? hehehe.
I love my fax. I believe theres another story for you there. I think the original transmission of images was demonstrated by a Scots inventor in 19 century. This evolved into pictures by wire. This system transmitted press photography all over the world. The credit said wire pic. Please do another session on this
When i started my internship @ Globe & Mail, we used tell a type, one foe each wire service.late 1970’s. I joined the army the tell a type till the late 90’s.
My first computer in 1985 was upgraded from four to EIGHT baud!
Anyone else mildly annoyed by the constant mispronunciation of Baudot? Other than that, it's a really interesting video.
Great video, well put together. Not only was it informative but entertaining as well! Thank you for the upload!
PS: I just subscribed!
The Sixth Floor museum in the former Dallas Textbook Depository on Dealy Plaza has period Telex machines showing the message traffic among journalists immediately after JFK was shot.
I used a Telex to send a press release in 1986, it was more effective than a FAX as the recioents wouldn; know what it was so it went to the Editor! I only fed the tape in the wrong way once after a few dozen messages.
As a mobile network applications developer it's interesting to see how addressing is pretty much the same for telex and mobile messaging. The only difference is that mobile messaging also has the provider code.
I operated both use the Telex AND the TWX machine on my job many years ago. Telex keyboards only had 3 rows of keys, but TWX keyboards had a standard typewriter keyboard. Messages were "recorded" on punched paper tape. Telex was quite difficult to master.
lol, flashback to the '70's. For a short while, they were also used to communicate with 'mainframe computers' ( back in the days, when ONE computer would occupy a LARGE room, and was so expensive, that companies and organisations actually RENTED computer time).
RYRYRY
Does anyone remember how to 'Read' 5 hole punch tape ?
NNNN
Not forgotten. My first job out of college in 1982 was for a Telex company. Lots of fun.
As a teen, I can remember Dad driving downtown to send a telex from the phone company's head office. This was in Jamaica in the late 80s.
At my first job, in Scotland, they had a telex machine. In the three years I was there before they switched it off, I think I could probably count the number of received telexes and still have fingers left over.
A few years ago I bought a USB fax modem and I think I only used it 3 times to fax customs for importing stuff. Cause I did not have their email address at the time....
I worked in aviation just before it was transitioning from telex to the web. In the early 90's I got into trouble for causing the SITA network to crash. Meaning there was no worldwide airline cominications for a few minutes. I also used secret message boards to talk to and make friends arround the world, there were several marriages thanks to these hidden capabilities of the Bahamas lost luggage system.
Teletype Corporation Model 33 and 35 used 8 digits code (ASCII). So they could be connected to computers.
This video ignores one of the most important things that happened to communications: the advent of the microcomputer in the late 70s, gaining significant traction in the early to mid 80s. The 300 baud setup was common for business users and hobbyists, which later morphed into increasing higher speeds.
The video is about Telex.
Was used well into the late 1980s, concurrently with faxes.
My wife worked at the London HQ of a large chemical company. She had to be able to read the tapes.
Her job was to go into the office an hour early, clear all the tapes from the floor generated by 10 machines (sometimes ankle deep); tear them into individual messages and feed them back into the machines to forward them onward around the world. All before 8 o’clock!
However Telex machines in the 1970s often took the form of word processor computers that could save messages to other storage mediums like floppy disks while it also enabled for early instant messaging as messages could then be saved instead of being immediately printed when received so you could then print them out or respond to them without printing them so it was a very early form of instant text messaging but in recent years before that they had managed to accomplish digital communications between mainframe computers through direct dial up connections with phone lines! :)
Punctuation is your friend. Consider getting reacquainted.
Nice, my dad used to have on in the cellar :-D now I know how it works haha thx
Nice vid! Speaking of defunct communications technologies, would be great to see you do one on the Pneumatic Post in Paris, which operated all the way up intil 1984!
Thanks Adam - I'll take a look!
I presume that's down tubes ? Still in use in supermarkets for moving money from tills to security office.
@@millomweb Pneumatic tubes are still a good way of getting small solid things between fixed locations. @pmailkeey
mentions moving money. I remember them being used to move samples of metal from steel converters (a very aggressive environment) to a central laboratory for testing in the 1970s - 80s. The results were sent back electronically in minutes.
Here are some starting points:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamson_Engineering_Company_Ltd
@@TomGillies Remember the toy capsules you used to get (maybe still do) - plastic, 1" in diameter 1.5 " long - type size. I've filled one with marbles / ball bearings and sent it from the ground floor up into the loft up new drainpipes propelled by the wrong end of a vacuum cleaner !
Sadly, the pipe was installed for its proper purpose on the installation of new bathroom stuff!
I remember on our family trips from the mid-60's to the early 70's, my Dad would go into a motel office (Holiday Inn, Best Western, etc) and have them check to make sure our reservation was confirmed/make a reservation or have them Telex the location we were going to and tell them we were running behind schedule.
I used it in the 1980s! It was pretty cool at the time because you could keep a record of the conversation.
Fax irrelevant ? A lot of people still use it nowadays.
Hardly. The UK is getting rid of faxes in the NHS and to use e-mail instead. It's cheaper and easier.
P Visit faxes are almost irrelevant. Nearly everyone has a smart phone where they can take a picture of their document and send via email. I haven’t used my fax machine in years.
@@rickintexas1584 Yes, unimportant messages from private persons go over the internet, that is correct. There is simply no use for a fax machine in private households anylonger, email, Telegram App and Threema substituted the fax neatly. Perhaps one day Telegram App on the computer and smartphone will substitute emails as well, apart form invoices sent via email.
But Businesses in 2020 still use fax (over VOIP of course), e.g. doctor's offices, retirement homes to communicate with doctors or the health insurance, banks, car dealerships and so on.
At least in Europe. Fax is easy to use and you know that the message did reach the receiver. Email is much to complicated for some sketches or prescriptions, unsecure and for legal reasons it isn't used.
This changes slowly, but at the moment most doctors insist in getting a fax instead of using email. We tried it, they are to old and stubborn and don't want to learn something new 3 year before their retirement.
This would only end if the health insurances (who pay the doctors) would insist of using email, one month with no money and they would learn in a hurry how to use emails...
I don't know if you can even buy a fax machine today.
I am sixty-six and I was at my doctor's office the other day
and she had a hand held computer she walked in the examination room with.
We talked about a few things as she entered the information
we talked about into her computer.
We discussed renewing my prescription and changing the
pharmacy I was using to one that was more convenient.
Unknown to me, as we were discussing this, she was doing it
right then and there before my eyes, in real time, on her computer.
When my short exam was done, I asked her what I needed to do
to get my renewed prescription and what I needed to do to get it changed to the
new pharmacy.
She said it was already done, she had done it on her
computer, and that I should hear from the new pharmacy by Monday! This was on
Tuesday. No hand written paper prescriptions, no phone calls, no telex, no
faxes....
Well............ as I was driving home that day, the new
pharmacy called and wanted some information about my health insurance! Not even
five minutes had passed since I left the doctor’s office. I told them I was
nearby and would just stop in.
When I got there, I walked right up to the counter, he took
my information and told me I could stop by tomorrow and pick up my medication!
He would have a three month supply waiting for me so I wouldn't have to come
back every month!
Holy crap!..... What a country. I should have made this
change sooner
At the old pharmacy this was not an easy medication to get
as it was pre-measured injections I had to administer to myself twice a month,
it had to be refrigerated, and I had to wait in a painfully slow moving line to
get to the counter of the pharmacy. Two people in front of me meant a half an
hour wait to get to the front. Sometimes to find out that they hadn't done
their job correctly and it either wasn't there or it was entered into the
system incorrectly and they wanted over $400.00 dollars for a one month supply,
that should have only costed $43.00. It was over $900.00/month without
insurance.
Fax irrelevant? Oh, I wish . . . .
Stunned to hear that TELEX still exists at all!
FAX is not totally dead... I kind of mourn for my FAX machine that languishes in the bottom cabinet of our home secretary, in our office.
I really enjoyed this video, thank you! The Newspaper I worked for in 1970 used Telex, among other machines of that era...It was my job each morning as a copy girl to wind the tape, that was in a pile on the floor from overnight, stopping at each number that was located at the end of a story. After working there a while, it was easy to spot the number (which was in holes) while it quickly spun around the winding machine I'd connected it to. I then paper clipped and hung them numerically for the next person to pick up. We've come a long way Baby!
Started in the media in early 80s, there were still a couple installed in the first offices where I worked to send out government press releases, etc. Transition was already underway to the thermal paper fax printers. But I did see one working, and an older reporter typed in some sort of string for me and it printed something out, I can't remember what, lol.
A couple of little details. In the United Kingdom and most of the world the machine speed was 66 words per minute using 50 Bauds, while in USA it was 60 words per minute using 45.45 Baud. Also Telex did not use tape for the print out, but a roll of paper 8.5 inch wide. UK teleprinters used for Telex service were produced by Creed & Co, initially in Croydon and then moved to Brighton and became part of ITT.
Thanks for the additional info Brian!
The fax machine was invented in 1843, long before the invention of the telephone. In the 1860's, fax machines were used to transmit photos between cities for newspapers.
No way in the 1800's! They barely had electromagnetic pulses.
@@robertodelmar1869
Scotsman Alexander Bain created and patented a device for sending images in 1843.
In 1863 Italian Giovanni Caselli designed the first commercial facsimile system, first used in France between the cities of Paris and Lyon. One of its main uses was to transmitt photographic images be published in newspapers.
The telephone was invented in 1876.
Trust me when I tell you, FAX is still a standard in certain "1st world" countries in Central Europe.
Greetings from Germany, the country of slowpokes.
There's still widely used in Canada, too. You're not alone
Baud rate and bit rate are not interchangeable. BAUD rate is the number of changes in the line voltage (amplitude) per second. The bit rate is determined in modern data devices using Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) allowing x number of bits per BAUD to be transmitted. Four bits per BAUD for 9600 and 12 bits per BAUD for 28800 bps. The standard telephone line could only handle audible frequencies and usually worked in the range of 300Hz to 3000Hz. The 2400 BAUD worked within this bandwidth of audible spectrum. Then there was the issue that some frequencies transmitted better than others, but that's another story.
When we're talking 50 and 110 baud (for telex and TWX), they are completely interchangeable. There was one bit per baud at those rates. It isn't until you get above 300 baud that there practically is a difference.
My ,other briefly worked as a Telex operator in about 1980.
Great blast from the past was my first job working for firms in the city and a French cable company, T15's ERP 7's oh and that tape that you had to learn to read and wrap it up in a figure of 8 between your thumb and forefinger. We could never get our Telex's sent to Nigeria with the famous answer back of DER meaning out of order. Years later I found out why, because the copper cables were always stolen ! UK's telex answerback for number abbreviated company and "G" for Great Britain.
my guess is the swiss still use telex for their banking system.
Faxes predated the Telex... It was a means of sending photos over telegraph lines. The first fax was sent in 1843...
I'll have to do a fax video!
Thanks you justed saved me
Wish me good luck in my Exams
You have an exam about the Telex? Is it the 1950s?
@@LittleCar Something related to it
Thank you so much for this video! I came here to learn what "TELEX" was because there is a telex number on the bottom of Paul Allen's business card from the movie, "American Psycho". Now I know.
Thanks for the video, brought backs some old memories. When I worked for a newspaper in 1970 there were several of these in the news room receiving stories from UPI and other wire services. The stories were printed and punched into paper tape at the same time.
If they decided to run the wire story unedited, the tape would be sent down to the typesetting room where a couple of special linotypes worked directly from the paper tape rather than having an operator type the story in.
Over the phone lines, (almost) direct to hot lead type! Amazing jumble of technology.
Maybe you'd like to make a video about the linotype. That was an amazing beast, a typewriter full of molten lead and little brass molds.
I would firmly recommend CuriousMarc's channel where he and his friends have restored some early Teletype machines:
ua-cam.com/video/_NuvwndwYSY/v-deo.html
I love that your hashtags only contain "#telex" :)
Good video! I'll be glad to see your channel grow over time!
I'm starting a trend!
The most pictures and videos in the movie are stolen...!!!
My understanding is this usage is covered by "fair use" under UA-cam's rules. This doesn't include attribution. However I'm happy to attribute anything that you wish. Let me know which you want me to attribute in the description.
Old teletype machines made for a great computer printer if you could get one, I remember the clatter of them well. That they did everything, including transmitting and receiving completely mechanically is pretty amazing. My stepfather's newspaper he worked for also had an old FAX machine, coupled with a phone receiver handset and had the fast spinning drum you put paper on and called the machine on the end you were sending or receiving on. It took a while, but worked. I miss this old tech sometimes.
Wonderful video. Reminds me of early faxes, where the handset of the phone was literally placed into a receiver on the device. I first saw one of those working in television many years ago. My thought at the idea of transmitting words and text in this manner was, "Jesus, what a clunker. There HAS to be a better way than this." I was seriously under-awed by the technology.
Anyway, thanks for the super job. Cheers!
You must have been working with a very early analog fax machine. In the digital world, only 300 baud modems had acoustic couplers for computers. Modern digital fax machines didn't have acoustic couplers as they operated at 4800-33600 bps.
My dad made a lot of money selling advertising space in a Swiss international telex directory in Middle Eastern countries in the '70s and early '80s. I remember fax machines taking over in the mid-'80s.