A very interesting article regarding the development of the fax machine.
Our GP still uses a fax machine to send referrals to specialists.
The funniesy story I ever heard when the fax machine market started to boom was about a lady whose thermal fax machine had run out of paper, and she rang the supplier and requested them to fax her a replacement roll of paper.
Many lawyers or those working with legal documents do as well. Looks like old habits die hard.
I have a financial institution I do business with (name withheld to protect the share price) that moved from only accepting post and fax to also accepting email ‘scans’ (pdf, jpg) for most things. While most companies have long published fillable forms this one has all of their forms on their web site, locked tight so they cannot be altered OR FILLED IN via a pdf viewer, excepting with a pdf editor that can apply text over the pdf document itself*. While it is easier than trying to type in rectangular form fields with a typewriter (available from your local museum or collector) why make it hard?
Where is this going? Without a pdf editor, the only way to complete their forms is to print them, complete them with pen and scan/photo them back in. But they have moved on from only post and fax and are proud of it.
* if you have a resident script monkey no worries, but the comment is for the ordinary person who just wants to send them the completed form.
While the article mentions Japan as a big adopter of fax machines, it fails to mention that they remain huge in Japan.
That said, production has dropped over the last several years.
I just looked at a few websites for facsimile machines.
Officeworks list 5 Brother models from $99 to $299.
Harris Technology lists 1 Brother model for $99.
JB HiFi & The Good Guys don;t even know what they are.
How times have changed.
The venerable FAX is more often than not an MFP these days. Printer-fax-scanner.
OMG! Who would have guessed (excepting those of us who see our own non-ACT GPs (etc) send around faxes)?
The venerable machines fax on! I thought the internet and wireless everything was already the future, but what do I know 
Only in Texas.
Didn’t George H Bush state before an election “Read my lips. No new faxes”?
Oops. It was “Read my lips. No new taxes”.
