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The first personal computer fax board, GammaFax, was produced in 1985 by GammaLink. [1] [2] [3] [4]
| This article needs to be updated.(December 2024) |
The first personal computer fax board, GammaFax, was produced in 1985 by GammaLink. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Fax, sometimes called telecopying or telefax, is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material, normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device. The original document is scanned with a fax machine, which processes the contents as a single fixed graphic image, converting it into a bitmap, and then transmitting it through the telephone system in the form of audio-frequency tones. The receiving fax machine interprets the tones and reconstructs the image, printing a paper copy. Early systems used direct conversions of image darkness to audio tone in a continuous or analog manner. Since the 1980s, most machines transmit an audio-encoded digital representation of the page, using data compression to transmit areas that are all-white or all-black, more quickly.
An image scanner is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting, or an object and converts it to a digital image. The most common type of scanner used in offices and in the home is the flatbed scanner, where the document is placed on a glass window for scanning. A sheetfed scanner, which moves the page across an image sensor using a series of rollers, may be used to scan one document at a time or multiple, as in an automatic document feeder. A handheld scanner is a portable version of an image scanner that can be used on any flat surface. Scans are usually downloaded to the computer that the scanner is connected to, although some scanners are able to store scans on standalone flash media.
Junk faxes are a form of telemarketing where unsolicited advertisements are sent via fax transmission. Junk faxes are the faxed equivalent of spam or junk mail. Proponents of this advertising medium often use the terms broadcast fax or fax advertising to avoid the negative connotation of the term junk fax. Junk faxes are generally considered to be a nuisance since they waste toner, ink and paper in fax machines.
Radiofacsimile, radiofax or HF fax is an analogue mode for transmitting grayscale images via high frequency (HF) radio waves. It was the predecessor to slow-scan television (SSTV). It was the primary method of sending photographs from remote sites from the 1930s to the early 1970s. It is still in limited use for transmitting weather charts and information to ships at sea.
GammaLink Inc. was an American computer hardware and software company founded in the 1980s in Sunnyvale, California, by Hank Magnuski and Michael Lutz. The company was the first to invent PC-to-fax communications technology, GammaFax.
Henry "Hank" Stanley Magnuski is an American engineer and was the co-founder and CEO of GammaLink, an early pioneer in PC-to-fax technology. He also founded Internet Video Services, a video service provider; MediaMart, an electronic commerce site; and NCast, a presentation technology company.
Xara is an international software company founded in 1981, with an HQ in Berlin and development office in Hemel Hempstead, UK. It has developed software for a variety of computer platforms, in chronological order: the Acorn Atom, BBC Micro, Z88, Atari ST, Acorn Archimedes, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and more recently web browser-based services.
Delrina Corporation was a Canadian software company active from 1988 to 1995. The company was best known for WinFax, a software package which enabled computers equipped with fax modems to transmit copies of documents to standalone fax machines or other similarly equipped computers. It also sold PerForm and FormFlow, electronic form software. Delrina was acquired by the American software firm Symantec in 1995.
The Junk Fax Prevention Act (JFPA) of 2005, Pub. L. 109–21 (text)(PDF), 119 Stat. 359 (2005), was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush on July 9, 2005. The law amends the Communications Act of 1934, significantly altering some aspects of prior amendments made by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 and the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 as they relate to the issue of junk fax.
Fax art is art specifically designed to be sent or transmitted by a facsimile machine, where the "fax art" is the received "fax". It is also called telecommunications art or telematic art. According to art historians Annmarie Chandler and Norie Neumark, "Fax art was another means of mediating distances".
WinFax is a discontinued Microsoft Windows-based software product developed and published by Delrina designed to let computers equipped with fax-modems communicate directly to stand-alone fax machines, or other similarly equipped computers.
J2 Global, Inc. was an American technology holding company based in Los Angeles, California. The company provided Internet services through two divisions: Business Cloud Services and Digital Media.
Fax, short for facsimile, is a telecommunications technology used to transfer copies of documents over the telephone network.
The Alfa DiskFax was a communication device created by Alfa Systems of the United Kingdom. It was launched in 1990. The DiskFax was designed to allow the transfer of digital files over a conventional telephone line to a remote DiskFax machine.
Dacom, Inc. was founded in 1966 by two ex-Lockheed engineers, Daniel Hochman, President, and Don Weber, Vice President, building on their pioneering work on digital image compression invented for satellite communications. Their work resulted in the first commercial digital fax machine and later the first sub-minute facsimile transmission over a single standard phone line. In 1973 Dacom was recipient of the IR-100 Award for the most significant new product in Information Technology. The patents and technology developed by Dacom have become the foundation of the modern desktop fax machine.
A fax modem enables a computer to transmit and receive documents as faxes on a telephone line. A fax modem is similar to a data modem but is designed to transmit and receive documents to and from a fax machine or another fax modem. Some, but not all, fax modems do double duty as data modems. As with other modems, fax modems can be internal or external. Internal fax modems are often called fax boards.
CCITT Group 4 compression, also referred to as G4 or Modified Modified READ (MMR), is a lossless method of image compression used in Group 4 fax machines defined in the ITU-T T.6 fax standard. It is only used for bitonal (black-and-white) images. Group 4 compression is based on the Group 3 two-dimensional compression scheme (G3-2D), also known as Modified READ, which is in turn based on the Group 3 one-dimensional compression scheme (G3), also known as Modified Huffman coding. Group 4 compression is available in many proprietary image file formats as well as standardized formats such as TIFF, CALS, CIT and the PDF document format.
The IBM Personal Computer XT is the second computer in the IBM Personal Computer line, released on March 8, 1983. Except for the addition of a built-in hard drive and extra expansion slots, it is very similar to the original IBM PC model 5150 from 1981.
Brooktrout Technology, Inc., later Brooktrout, Inc., was an American telecommunications company based in Boston, Massachusetts, and active from 1984 to 2005. The company was initially focused on the development of hardware and software to allow personal computers to act as fax machines, similar to GammaLink's GammaFax. The company later developed fax server hardware for local area networks before ultimately pursuing Voice over IP and videoconferencing products. In 2005, the company was acquired by EAS Group, who merged Brooktrout with another company of theirs to form Cantata Technology. Cantata was in turn acquired by Dialogic Group in 2007.
Datacopy Corporation was an American computer hardware company independently active from 1973 to 1988. The company was a pioneer in the field of digital imaging, especially image scanners for personal computers. It was acquired by Xerox in 1988 and folded into their Xerox Imaging Systems subsidiary.
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