Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!grapevine!koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com
From: koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com (Steven Grimm)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Networks considered harmful
Message-ID: <34971@grapevine.uucp>
Date: 19 Dec 89 15:55:21 GMT
References: <8912190403.AA05387@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Sender: news@grapevine.uucp
Reply-To: koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com (Steven Grimm)
Organization: Sun Microsystems Federal, Milpitas, CA
Lines: 23

In article <8912190403.AA05387@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> 702WFG@SCRVMSYS.BITNET (bill gunshannon) writes:
>So, someone please tell me "What is so great about FAX?" and why can't
>those of us who use Email all the time convince the rest of the world
>how much better it really is??

Because it's alien to most people.  A fax machine acts like a copier,
something everyone is familiar with, except the copy just happens to pop
out somewhere else.  I think it's a fairly well established fact that
people don't want to learn anything new if they can help it, and learning
to use Email as effectively as fax does take a while.  (If you don't
believe me, try mailing a binary image from a uucp node to someone on
BITNET.)

Granted, this is nothing inherently wrong with Email; one could certainly
write a nice turnkey system to do very friendly Emailing.  BUT, such a
system doesn't currently exist.  As long as the user has to worry about
what to send (or have his computer send) at a "login:" prompt, Email won't
be as popular as fax.

---
"                                                  !" - Marcel Marceau
Steven Grimm		Moderator, comp.{sources,binaries}.atari.st
koreth@ebay.sun.com	...!sun!ebay!koreth