THE BEGINNINGS OF FAX TECHNOLOGY DURING THOREAU’S LIFETIME And yet — in fact you need only draw a single thread at any point you choose out of the fabric of life and the run will make a pathway across the whole, and down that wider pathway each of the other threads will become successively visible, one by one. — Heimito von Doderer, DIE DÂIMONEN 1843 A news item relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology: • A mechanism consisting of two pens on two pendulums above an electrically conductive surface, with the two pens and pendulums connected to each other only by an electricity-carrying wire, was able to duplicate writing at a distance. This amounted to the 1st prototype FAX machine and was patented by the clockmaker Alexander Bain (1818-1903) who had previously developed an electric telegraph device and a synchronized electric clock. The inventor’s electric telegraph had solved the transportation-of-message part of the new problem which he had set for himself, of writing at a distance, and his synchronized electric clock had helped with the synchronization part of the new problem. He prepared his message medium by the raising of metal blocks on a surface. As a metal stylus moved over the surface upon which the message had been prepared, the blocks that had been raised in lifting the stylus interrupted the flow of electricity. Unfortunately, this was merely a demonstration-of-possibility device as the preparation of such a surface was labor-intensive, and required considerable skill. Which is more impressive — the speed of the fax’s diffusion in the last five years, or the lapse of a century between its first commercial use in 1865 and widespread use? “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” — Carl Sagan HDT WHAT? INDEX FAX FAX 1848 A news item relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology: •A working FAX design was patented by Frederick Bakewell (but his invention would not be commercialized). 1851 January: In the International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2: We find in the London papers accounts of a Copying Electric Telegraph, invented by a Mr. Bakewell, who had given lectures upon it at the Russell Institution. Its object is the transmission of the handwriting of correspondents. Its advantages are, freedom from error, as the messages transmitted are fac-similes of the originals: authentication of the communications by the transmission of copies of the handwriting; increased rapidity, to such an extent that a single wire may be as effective as ten with the needle telegraph, and consequent economy in the construction of telegraphic lines of communication. The secrecy of correspondence would also be maintained in a greater degree by the copying telegraph, as it would afford peculiar facility for transmitting messages in cipher, and the telegraph clerks, instead of being compelled by their duties to read all the messages transmitted, might be forbidden from perusing any portion but the address. As an additional means of secrecy, the messages may be transmitted invisibly, by moistening the paper with diluted muriatic acid alone, the writing being rendered legible by a solution of prussiate of potass [sic]. FAX 2 Copyright Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX FAX FAX 1861 September 15, Sunday: Feng Kuei-fen authored the Chiao-pin-lu k’ang-i “Protest from the Chiao-pin Studio” document which recommended that China become capable of resisting the West by accommodating to the more powerful of the features of Western technology: this would be known as the Self-Strengthening Movement. Technology? In China? For sure, for sure, some say! An example of this is that there has been a claim made that FAXes were already being transmitted in this year in the Chinese language, before this technology became feasible in the West, as a hardware alternative to having a software “Morse code” (not viable for a non-alphabetic language) — as witness a transliteration from Chinese into English of a FAX cover sheet bearing an 1861 date: September 15, the 10th year [1861] of the Xian Feng Reign [1851-61] To: The Cabinet Majesty Emperor Xian Feng From: [?] Re: Copy of treaties documented on the 11th and the 12th day of this month. Unless, that is, the above is a significant misunderstanding —and I have been unable to discover any independent attestation to its authenticity. (Bear in mind that in this year of 1861 also appeared the 1st photograph known to be an intentionally, politically doctored one: When King Wilhelm I of Prussia visited a livestock show in Berlin no photographer happened to be present, so later the 30 farmers reassembled and a photograph was made in order to paste upon it a trimmed image of Wilhelm.) According to Joshua Shi of the Shanghai Star, In 1865 ... a line was set up to establish telegraphic connections between Shanghai and Wusong, so that people in the foreign settlements could be informed of the shipping movements at the mouth of the Yangtze River. The farmers destroyed the poles, which they said had a bad effect on the “Fengshui” of the locality.... A year later, Russell and Company, with the permission of the foreign authorities, put up a line between the French Concession and the American Settlement in Hongkou. This was the first telegraph line to operate in China, but it was entirely within the settlement limits.... In 1870, when a cable was laid between Shanghai and Hong Kong, the cable at the Shanghai end was not to be landed on shore but on vessels anchored outside the limits. No part of the line went overland; and at each port where the company had an office, the telegraph service was conducted on hulks. The cable at Wusong was brought ashore secretly.... [I]n 1878 the Qing authorities permitted the construction of an overland line along the old Wusong Road, the poles being erected on foreign-owned land. ... In 1880 and 1881, the Qing authorities employed the Great Northern Telegraph Company (Danish) to construct a line connecting Shanghai and Beijing, the imperial capital, at a cost of 140,000 taels of silver. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 3 HDT WHAT? INDEX FAX FAX It would appear, if the above account out of the Shanghai Star is correct, that there must have somehow been a misprint in the date of this above transmission –perhaps that instead of being dated September 15, 1881, it actually was dated September 15th, 1881– and that there must also have been a misunderstanding as to the nature of the document in question — perhaps instead of the sheet of paper in question being an actual transmitted FAX, it had instead been merely a temporary instruction sheet on the basis of which the numbers used for the Chinese characters in a telegram transmission had been coded! 1862 Yet another early event in the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology: • Giovanni Caselli devised a “pantelegraph” that added to Alexander Bain’s 1843 FAX device a synchronizing apparatus. 1863 Yet another early event in the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology: • A functioning FAX machine was patented in the United States and a functioning FAX line was installed between Paris and Lyon, France.1 Two Chinese gentlemen appeared at Paul Gustave Froment’s FAX workshop outside of Paris to check out this Western invention, and expressed great amazement at the technological progress being made by the white people.2 They politely remarked that such a device would be a most efficient manner in which to effect the transmission of the complex characters of their written language. And, in France, a publisher rejected a manuscript entitled PARIS AU XXe SIECLE, which would not be revisited and published until the 20th Century (specifically, 1994). In this manuscript the author, Jules Verne, wrote of a Paris of the year 1960 in which a “photographic telegraph permitted the dispatch over long distances of the facsimile of any writing, signature or design.” This was to be a sort of “photo-telegraphy” which by that remote future time would be allowing “any writing, signature, or illustration to be sent far away, and any contract to be signed at a distance of 20,000 kilometers.” The sci-fi dreamer added that “Every house was wired.” 1. This was the first positive functioning of the system which Jonathan Coopersmith describes as an 1865 system (“Facsimile’s false starts: The development of the 150-year-old concept underwent many twists and cost millions of dollars before soaring to success.” IEEE Spectrum of February 1993, pages 46-9), where he mentions a patent by Abbé Caselli and the introduction of an ink-on-tinfoil system between Paris and Lyon in 1865, and another system employing a shellac-on-adhesive-ink system for raising the stylus and breaking the current. The late date, 1865, which he used in his article, was merely the date on which the system which the French government had under development had “gone public,” to carry such business items as stock market citations, and he is evidently referring to the public ceremonial dedication of the system, which was staged on May 16, 1865. The system had been, however, authorized by the French legislature in 1861, and was already as of 1863 transmitting at 15 words per minute, with a general throughput of 40 telegrams of 20 words each per hour. 2. Were these guys industrial spies, checking to make sure that we weren’t getting too far ahead of Chinese technology? 4 Copyright Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX FAX FAX 1902 News items relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology: • Arthur Korn (1870-1945) devised a process termed “telephotography” which improved FAX transmission by providing a way to break down and transmit and receive still photographs by means of electrical wires.