Fax Machines

Citation Needed

Citation Needed Media

Culture, Humor, Popculture, Satire, Wikipedia, Comedy, Society, Wiki, Society & Culture, Politics, News

4.8 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device. The original document is scanned with a fax machine (or a telecopier), which processes the contents (text or images) as a single fixed graphic image, converting it into a bitmap, and then transmitting it through the telephone system in the form of audio-frequency tones. The receiving fax machine interprets the tones and reconstructs the image, printing a paper copy.[1] Early systems used direct conversions of image darkness to audio tone in a continuous or analog manner. Since the 1980s, most machines transmit an audio-encoded digital representation of the page, using data compression to transmit areas that are all-white or all-black, more quickly.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome.
0:09.0	Hello and welcome, citation needed.
0:25.5	The podcast, where you choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts.
0:30.0	Because this is the internet, and that's how it works now.
0:32.6	I'm Eli Bosnick and I'll be presenting the facts this evening, but I'll need some hastily printed extras.
0:38.8	Noah, Keith, Cecil, and Tom.
0:41.0	I do make that screechy fax sound when you pick up the phone on it.
0:44.3	So, yeah, no, I get it.
0:45.1	Okay.
0:45.5	My entire generation cannot come without the sound of dialects.
0:49.9	Thank you, it's true. Noah, I think.
0:52.3	I really like to think of myself as the PC load letter of our show.
0:55.8	Interesting.
0:56.7	I've always said that.
0:57.6	I always said that.
1:00.3	Now, before we begin tonight, I'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons.
1:03.7	Patrons, without you, none of us would have the cash to reproduce.
1:07.8	And I do mean on paper.
1:09.7	Couldn't quite get that Staples 26 cents a page without you.
1:13.2	So if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around till the end of the show.
1:16.8	And with that out of the way, tell us no illusions. What person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event what we'll be talking about today.
1:23.8	Is Staples still a thing? Today, we're going to be talking about the delightfully nerdy subject of fax machines.
	...

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