Mary S. Moore
Portable Facsimile Machines
: Currently available are small, lightweight fax units which are designed primarily for the traveling business executive and salesperson. With acoustic coupler that attaches to any public, private or cellular telephone, these units can be easily carried and used anywhere—in hotels, airports and even an automobile. They can weigh as little as 10 pounds and are small enough to fit inside an attache case. Portable models should not be confused with transportable units, though, which are essentially small office facsimile models that are light enough to be transported from office to office, but not light enough to be transported from building to building.
Compact facsimile machines:
Japanese manufacturers were the first to introduce desktop portable facsimile machines which incorporate a telephone into the unit. Known as “faxphones,” these models are professional-looking, one-piece systems that can be placed on the executive’s desk, thus reducing the necessary office space for a telephone and a facsimile machine. Compact units offer many of the same features as the larger ones, including approximately 20-second transmission speeds and Group III and II compatibility.
Links to personal computers:
Although fax machines encode documents as images (whereas personal computers encode alphanumerics individually), companies like Gammalink (Palo Alto, California) and Xerox (Lewisville, Texas) market add-on PC boards that enable PCs to display faxed documents as graphic images. This makes it possible for PC users located remotely from centralized fax devices to view fax information at their desks instead of having to go to central sites to pick up hard copy.
Future Developments
: Much of the future of facsimile can already be seen. The Group III machines which are now at the forefront of market activity will become smaller, more portable and less costly. Increasingly, they will be given plain paper printing capabilities. Also, as wideband telecommunications services (such as AT&T’s Switched 56 offering) become more widely available, it will become easier to put high-powered Group IV machines to work. Nonetheless, the current Group III devices promise to remain the primary type of fax terminal into the 1990s.
