Newsgroups: comp.dcom.fax
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uupsi!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: FAX/MODEM... why not?
Message-ID: <NBDBDP8@xds13.ferranti.com>
Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
References: <GN5B6JD@xds13.ferranti.com> <2451@wet.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17 May 91 17:10:52 GMT

In article <2451@wet.UUCP> roger@wet.UUCP (Roger Niclas) writes:
> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
> > What I don't understand about all these cheap FAXes is why nobody has put
> > a $5 serial port in one and sold it as a combination FAX/MODEM/SCANNER/
> > PRINTER? It's got all the parts, and the software on the computer side
> > couldn't be that big a deal. It'd be a killer product: you could sell it

> Maybe because it'd be a third-rate printer, a crummy scanner, and an 
> incompatible modem?

It wouldn't be compatible with Hayes or Telebit high speed modems, but
doesn't Group 3 FAX use regular 2400 baud protocols? And it'd be as good
a printer as any of the standard dot-matrix ones out there. And as good
a scanner as any other monochrome one.

> And it wouldn't even require the use of a precious serial port on the
> computer side

On the contrary, it'd save one. Or you could put an even cheaper parallel
port and give me a use for the stupid parallel port on my computer.
-- 
Peter da Silva; Ferranti International Controls Corporation; +1 713 274 5180;
Sugar Land, TX  77487-5012;         `-_-' "Have you hugged your wolf, today?"
