ELECTRONIC INFORMATION

Fax boards speed up the faxing process

In previous columns, we discussed two ways to communicate with colleagues: electronic mail and

bulletin boards. These methods are Useful, particularly for transferring large files and for transferring data or text that will be edited, manipulated, or otherwise used in machine-reada­ble form. However, there are several features of electronic mail that can cause problems: 1) the sender often must specify the route the mail must take to the recipient and this route can depend on the machine of origin; 2) the mail is not always delivered immediately since intermediate ma­chines in the delivery path may hold the message while awaiting empty lines, a low workload, or a scheduled delivery time; 3) mail that crosses network boundaries can get lost or mangled, so the recipient generally must confirm the arrival of important files; 4) since there is no universal format for storage of graphic informa­tion, the sender and recipient must discuss the format before pictorial information is transmitted.

To avoid these problems, one can use a facsimile machine, probably the most ubiquitous from of electronic communication. Transmission-pro­tocol standards have been developed so that facsimile machines anywhere in the world can communicate directly with each other. Routing decisions are left to the telecommunications switches, the mail can be delivered while you wait, the facsimile machine tells you if the mail was properly delivered, and anything that can be drawn on a page can be sent.

However, the fax process can be cumbersome. Consider this column. It exists in an ASCII file on my P C . To

B O B JOPSON is a Member of Techni­cal Staff at A T & T Bell Laboratories.

send it to Optics and Photonics News, I must format it, print it out onto paper, take the paper down the hall to a facsimile machine, fill out a fax cover sheet, enter the phone number into the machine, start the transmission, and wait a minute for it to finish.

Much of this effort can be avoided through the use of a fax board and associated software. Slide a fax board into your computer and plug a phone line into the back of the board. To send a letter or other document by fax, first write it using a word processor, then tell the fax board to send it to the desired phone number. You can now go about your business while the board contacts the recipient fax ma­chine (or fax board), converts the letter to the facsimile protocol, and transmits it. The same message can be

broadcast to a list of users with mini­mal additional effort.

Many fax boards accept incoming faxes without disturbing you, allow­ing you to view these messages on your screen or print them at your leisure. Some fax boards can convert various word-processor formats to fax format and others can transmit graph­ics by converting standard bit-mapped graphics formats. It is also possible to transmit the screen or to intercept images in Post Script or other printer formats, convert them to fax format, and transmit them. Images on paper can be sent using a fax board that can drive an optical scanner. However, the use of a scanner negates one major advantage fax boards hold over fax machines: image quality. Since a fax board generates the bit map of the text directly, it avoids some of the digiti­zation errors inherent to the optical scanning operation. To see an exam­ple of the image quality attainable, use a touch-tone phone to call Intel's automated information distribution system (800/ 525-3019). Follow the instructions given to receive a short catalogue by fax.

To obtain a fax board, browse through a computer store or the advertisements in one of the popular computer magazines. One can be purchased for as little as $100 or for more than $1,000. To ensure com­patibility with your needs, pay close attention to the formats that the board can accept and translate. Finally, bear in mind that fax, although convenient, is really a pretty inefficient method for encoding and transmitting text. Use electronic mail for large text files, fax boards for graphics and short letters, and hope that the world agrees soon on a universal standard that allows transmission of both text and graphics in machine-readable form.

42 OPTICS & PHOTONICS NEWS • OCTOBER 1990