Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!dptg!rutgers!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!ames!uhccux!munnari.oz.au!comp.vuw.ac.nz!dsiramd!csnz!paul
From: paul@csnz.co.nz (Paul Gillingwater)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: The future of FAX
Message-ID: <90@csnz.co.nz>
Date: 7 Aug 89 20:59:05 GMT
Reply-To: paul@csnz.co.nz (Paul Gillingwater)
Organization: Computer Sciences of NZ Limited
Lines: 40

Hmmm... (Long musing follows on what FAX machines *could* be...)


Fax cards for PC's.  This seems to be a growing market, and now of
course there are UNIX drivers for the things, however I think a
fundamental error has been made.  FAX transmission and reception
is a fairly intensive activity in terms of I/O -- incoming FAXes
especially can take hundreds of kb, and they have to be ready at
anytime.  With most computers, 24 hour access is rare -- e.g. the
system may be down for maintenance, or doing an fsck.  

My proposal is: why not treat a FAX machine as a peripheral device,
via a serial port?  Has this been done?  Is there a FAX machine
which one can send an X.400 mail message to, which can add its
own selected headers, compress it for Group III or IV, and add it
to its own queue for transmission, possibly to a pre-selected
distribution list?  My dream FAX would have its own disk drive
(3.5" DOS format) for spooling incoming, and have a printer port
(with a range of drivers which are setup-selectable, such as
Epson, HP Laserjet, PostScript, etc.), as well as an optional
FAX-type printer.  Optional modules for the FAX would enable its
scanner to store the image as Group III or IV, and also output
the image(s) to disk as TIFF, GIF, PCX or what-have-you.  The
scanner should be able to do OCR as well, and also be able to 
function as a simple photocopier.

So am I dreaming?  Why can't I just treat a FAX machine as a
spool queue, able to accept X.400 or RFC message formats?
I'm convinced this is better than an inboard FAX board in a 
UNIX box.  Of course you might be able to achieve some of this
functionality with a cheap PC linked via a LAN...  but why not
add the intelligence to the FAX machine, and have optional
interfaces such as V.24, SNA, IEEE-802.3, SCSI or Centronics?

Sigh....

-- 
Paul Gillingwater, Computer Sciences of New Zealand Limited
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