Like the title says, how was data transferred via phone lines.
In: Technology
The same way anything else (like voice) is transmitted via phone lines. The phone/fax machine converts the information it receives through the mouthpiece (in the case of a phone) or through the scanner (in the case of a fax machine) into an electronic signal that it transmits over the phone line (which is largely the internet now anyway) through a series of intermediate routers until it arrives at the destination phone or fax machine. At that point, the electrical signal is converted back to voice (by vibrating the ear piece to send out sound waves) or a fax (by printing pixels).
Fax machines were actually invented in the 1800s.
So one fax machine calls another fax machine. The 2 machines sync together and the transmitting machine begins to scan the page line by line. When the machine sees white it sends nothing, but when it sees black it sends a beep. The receiving machine prints a dot every time it hears a beep.
There’s an awesome TV show from the late 90s called The Secret Life of Machines. The host, Tim Hunkin, has upscaled all the episodes and uploaded them to his YouTube channel. There’s an episode on fax machines called The Secret Life of the Fax Machine. The show is fun and I’d recommend watching all of them.
You take a piece of paper with people language on it and show it to a robot. The robot changes it to robot language then screams over telephone lines to another robot. The second robot changes it back from robot language to people language and puts it back onto a blank piece of paper.
Latest Answers