Xref: utzoo comp.misc:4617 comp.sys.ibm.pc:22879
Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ncar!tank!mimsy!haven!uvaarpa!mcnc!rti!bcw
From: bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Request for poll of ten best/worst products of 88
Summary: Another use for fax
Message-ID: <2700@rti.UUCP>
Date: 7 Jan 89 04:17:18 GMT
References: <210@imspw6.UUCP> <109@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> <77200@felix.UUCP> <2106@van-bc.UUCP>
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, RTP, NC
Lines: 29

In article <2106@van-bc.UUCP>, sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne) writes:
> 
> Interesting sideline, just after I hit the send key for my last message I
> heard an interesting report on NPR.
> 
> Somewhere in the "bay" area a company called Grocery Express will take you
> Fax'd order for up to $100 of groceries and deliver it to you for $5.
> 
> People seem to like the convience. One woman interviewed now works at home
> (so she can look after her baby) and has an in home fax.  It would seem that 
> a Fax machine will be the next yuppie phenomana. 
> 
As a sidebar to all this about fax, I have considered getting a cheap
fax machine for my wife (who is deaf).  The crushing problem with things
like TDD's (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf) is that they are
totally incompatible with everything else (they use an ancient protocol
predating even 110 baud modems) - the other party has to have one in
order to talk to them, and they aren't very common except for the
deaf and certain "core" social services (911 and similar services, at
least in some cities).

They are getting common enough (and cheap enough) so that this sort of
application is becomming possible.  If things continue as they have been
for a while, they could become a truly universal communications medium,
supplanting TDDs and modems for "bread-and-butter" uses like this (there
are SO MANY incompatible modem protocols ...).  That time has not yet
arrived however.

					Bruce C. Wright