An electronic fax machine is a machine used to send information via pulses over the phone line. It consists of a modem, a scanner, and a printer. Basically, an electronic fax machine scans the document you send through it, be it pictures, text, or whatever. It then transmits that data over the phone lines to another fax machine. The receiving machine would then print the data out, either in black and white or color, depending one what type of fax machine you had.
Fax machines were first made popular in Japan, as typing their alphabet was much more time consuming than writing it by hand. The popularity of the fax machine grew as the technology that drove it became more and more inexpensive, and soon, the entire world used fax machines. Many fax machines included a phone, and many newer fax machines were included in a unit that also came equipped with a scanner, printer, and copier.
Nowadays, the electronic fax machine is basically being replaced by email faxing. Email faxing is so cheap and efficient compared to the electronic fax machine that it leaves the technology of the old, bulky dinosaurs basically in the dust. Unlike fax machines, email doesn’t waste ink printing out everything, it doesn’t jam, isn’t big and bulky, and you don’t need a separate, expensive phone line tied up to use it. You simply use the internet, and your computer. The software required to email fax is also extremely cheap when held up against the cost of an expensive fax machine.
While one cannot deny that in its day, the fax machine was incredible; one also needs to realize that in today’s world of high-speed communication, the fax machine is very out classed by computers and the internet. The speed, ease of use, and cheap prices of computers and software have very much killed the electronic fax machine.