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From: walkerb@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Brian Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,alt.bbs
Subject: Re: PC to fax connection?
Message-ID: <14563@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 5 Dec 89 05:49:05 GMT
References: <797@crash.cts.com> <1108@sumax.UUCP>
Sender: news@boulder.Colorado.EDU
Reply-To: walkerb@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Brian Walker)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Lines: 30

In article <1108@sumax.UUCP> roise@sumax.UUCP (Linda L. Roise) writes:
>>No, FAX machines transmit at 9600 baud for the most part and use their own
>>special protocol.  Some older FAX machines transmit at 4800 baud.  If it was
>>that simple, the FAX board/modem would have never be developed.  Sorry,
>>there's more to a FAX machine that just a carrier that is similiar to a modem.
>
>I had also been wondering about this question.  I take it, then, that even
>if I were to call at 9600 baud, to a newer FAX, the appropriate protocalls
>would not be available, so it wouldn't work?
>
>Has anyone developed any software that might translate the data into acceptable
>formats? Or are we talking about apples and oranges, even though the two types
>of machines seem to serve a similar function?

Well, we can start with the modem itself.  Fax machines use the v.29 modem
standard developed by CCITT, the international standards committee for
communications.  V.29 is a half-duplex protocol so it wouldn't be all that
great for computers but is quite adequate for fax.  This stanndard is not
compatible with any of the multitude of standards provided for personal
computers.

On an operational level, there is really nothing that a fax machine does that
a PC could not handle, with a little help.  A computer system would just have
to provide scanning and printing capabilities and the appropriate compression
algorithm.

Brian Walker
walkerb@tramp.colorado.edu      "If we imagine no worse of them than they of
..!ncar!boulder!tramp!walkerb   themselves, they may pass for excellent men."
University of Colorado at Boulder