Death of the Fax Machine

Having lunch with my 12 year old son - who’s back to a brief spell of remote schooling - he asks what a “fax number” is…haha which I explain. Obviously kids of today really won’t have a clue. I dare say the landline phone handset will be next.

Anyway I did still a have a fax until a few short years ago (went to integrated copy machine then to virtual / eFax) but it’s use became so infrequent it wasn’t worth the ongoing expense.

How many folks still use one? Other than health care and patient scripts (where he gleaned the term) are there any other industries that still hold on to this once mainstay of 80’s and 90’s corporate comms worlds I wonder?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

How many folks still use one?

Went to the tip a couple of years ago, although I can't remember when it was used prior to that.

I have a vague memory that a faxed copy can still be used as a legal document, whereas a scanned/copied one cannot - could be 20 years out-of-date

Worked with a company a while ago and struggled to get faxing working with a SIP ATA and provider that was meant to support it, so they just quietly dropped the fax number from their contact details and if anybody asked they just said they didn't have a fax and to email instead. Didn't cause any problems.

Still in use in the gold ol' US of A!

I thought they were meant to have advance technology?

Oh gosh yeah. Fax machines and ATA’s aren’t always an easy marriage.

My old HP 'PSC' with fax was one of my favourite printers, when building a house about 15 years ago it was indispensable as builders merchants at the time always used them, we had a narrow escape once when gf asked for the t&c's of insurance to be faxed over, fortunatly only had about a dozen sheets of paper loaded.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Obviously kids of today really won’t have a clue. I dare say the landline phone handset will be next.

Next time you see your son composing an email, ask him what he thinks "Cc" stands for and where it came from

I used to have to send a printed report out to several hundred colleagues on a weekly basis which meant 'cutting a skin' as we termed it before duplicating it on the Gestetner. My typing is still stilted by the strict rhythm you had to keep to on the teletype. What fun we used to have

Haha. Son no. 1 could explain the function, but had no clue what the letters actually stood for. Asked his slightly older sister and she ventured, “…carbon copy?” But I had to explain the history and where the ‘carbon’ came into it.

Then we got onto bcc…🤣