BBC tomorrow's world and time travel

[ericmark]

From http://www.hffax.de/html/hauptteil_faxhistory.htm

1888 The Gray National Telautograph Company originated in 1888 when the company bought the patent for the first Telautograph (today known as facsimile) instrument from Omnifax founding father, Professor Elisha Gray. According to the patent, the invention enabled “one to transmit his own handwriting to a distant point over a two-wire circuit". Gray had received much notoriety two years earlier for being just three hours late in filing his patent for the invention of the telephone.
Grays's Telautograph was the first facsimile that wrote on stationary paper. This transmission to the Police in 1893 was the first public exhibition of the Telautograph. This “Standard” model also drew record crowds at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

Looking at BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8253236.stm it seems this was reported at the time on Tomorrow’s World see
“Fax frenzy
I do remember being very excited by the fax machine.
If I could get a map from the studio to America "down an ordinary phone line" then I could get scripts from my home in Newbury to the Tomorrow's World office.”

In 1865 Italian physics professor Giovanni Caselli established the first commercial fax system, which linked Paris and several other French cities, using a device called a Pantèlègraphe which was a modification of Alexander Bain's original idea. He transmited nearly 5,000 faxes in the first year.

When was “Tomorrow’s World” started and how was it broadcast before the invention of TV? I though it was first broadcast around 1986 I would have thought that was around 100 years too late?

[Donkmeister]

I guess the difference is that the early systems you mention are pure analogue devices that require special ink, whereas the fax machine we all know is a digital device that reads documents optically, compresses the data stream, then modulates the digital data for transmission over the analogue phone system.

To be honest, I thought the digital fax machine was well established by the mid-80s. Wasn't Derek Trotter already pedalling them on Only Fools and Horses by then?

BRING BACK TOMORROW'S WORLD!!!

[ChrisFrost]

ericmark wrote:

When was “Tomorrow’s World” started and how was it broadcast before the invention of TV?

With respect...are you on drugs?

Ideas and inventions can take many years to reach the mass market. Mobile phones, personal home computers, fax machines, television are all examples of products that took years to become affordable for the average man in the street. TW made people aware of new breakthroughs and also stuff that was imminent. Most of us of an age remember the TV demo of CD.

[ericmark]

If I understand the history of fax it had a few peaks in popularity. At first before Morse code was invented it was gathering some but Morse could sent letters down a wire with less equipment. However in USA it was used for morning newspaper and was becoming more of a force with fax and shred. But once TV came along it lost popularity. One can see them in US black and white cops films where they "Wire" through a picture.

Then around 1980 they had a second lease of life mainly due to Japan making cheap machines and they did well until the email came in.

I would guess it was this second lease of life Tomorrows World reported and the main thing was the electronic timing which allowed higher baud rates.

Even today the fax is not yet dead. It has two advantages over email.
1) Caller ID can now confirm who the sender is.
2) Likely the person receiving will see it arrive so act on it quicker than email.

However does not matter if tomorrows world or dragons den often these so called new inventions have been around for ages before we see them on TV.

When I was at school a guy called Hero invented the steam turbine but now I'm told it was Parsons? Seems Bell did not invent telephone it was working 30 years before he invented it. And since fall of Iron curtain seems many inventions we invented by them first.

But I suppose its how we use the invention Archimedes invented to screw but how long before anyone fitted it to a ship? And the same with centrifuge been used for years but not with domestic vacuum (Air velocity) cleaners until Dyson. Yet we are told he had a patent on it!

[plugwash]

ericmark wrote:

1) Caller ID can now confirm who the sender is.

For sufficiantly small values of confirm.

[davelx]

When I left Uni in 1976, my first job was with Muirhead Data Communications, who were one of the largest suppliers of analogue fax machines using the flying spot scanner and the wet paper/high voltage stylus printing method.

My first project was called "OMF" - One Minute Fax - and it was one of the very first group-3 digital fax machines using run length encoding for data compression. The initial application was military as part of the Ptarmigan communcations system.

The scanner used a flourescent lamp to illuminate the copy and an array of 1728 photo-transistors to scan the data. The paper was fed by a stepper motor at variable speed, depending on how much data compression was being achieved (much the same as today).

At the receiving end, we used a multiplexed array of 1728 needles and 16 backplane electrodes to put a charge on to coated paper to attract the toner, which was then fused using pressure rollers. It needed 600V between the needles and the backplane to get enough charge to attract the toner.

I was responsible for the microprocessor control hardware and firmware for the paper path, fusing rollers and paper cutter and feed motors using the 6800 MPU. This was Muirhead's first application of microprocessors.

This was then expanded into commercial GP 3 machines.

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