The Secret Life of the Fax Machine - Remastered
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- Опубликовано: 16 июн 2021
- I've been in my workshop making things ever since, and the covid lockdown was the perfect time to make some new videos, trying to pass on some of what I've learnt. So if you're interested do try my new 'Secret Life of Components'
These old films were remastered and upscaled by Norman Margolus from a 1987 PAL tape made directly from the 16mm print, using machine learning software from Topaz labs. Commentary added in Feb 2021.
View all 18 episodes of the series and read about their background on my website:
www.timhunkin.com/a243_Secret...
The videos are also here @ / timhunkin1 
Развлечения
I do like the 'string wrapped around drums' demonstration. It makes a great example of simple serial communication.
They end up using a similar device to explain television as well, if I recall correctly. All picture transmission after the fax was based on similar concepts. Even today with pixels the linear scanning is still part of the system.
ditto. as a first time viewer i love how coherent their demonstrations are. something about them makes the concepts just /click/, one of my favorites is the 'human sewing machine'.
That was definitely my favorite
"Look sir, the first electric clock!"
"It's hideous, go away!"
3:40
I remember when companies used to send junk mail via fax.
I got so tired of this particular company sending their junk mail that I got my hands on 25 pieces of black paper and faxed it to them 42 times in a single day.
They never sent us junk mail by fax ever again
The junk faxes and black paper are the reason my customers have me turn off printing and forwarding the faxes to a folder on the computer, then they decide what to print and what to delete
After all these years, I could finally read the sign at 0:24 -- "You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps".
There's some absolutely epic easter eggs in the text of the Utopia stuff in this one, the Word Processor one and the Photocopier one. Also, Enema Drain Cleaners that comes through on the fax always made me smile.
Tim you have absolutely no idea how happy I am to see "The secret life of machines" series up on RUclips, and the commentary at the end is just wonderful. It was one of my favorite programs as a child and certainly inspired me. Thank you (and Rex) so much!
Anyone else hear the theme song just looking at the thumbnail?
"It's a job to keep it in synch, but it's not bad for a lathe" 😂
This programme is absolute GENIUS. This is simply THE BEST science communication I've ever seen. Tim, your are mind-blowingly good at this.
Glad to see I'm not the only one impressed by this. Imagine coming up with the idea of using lathes, getting the components together and making it work at all is amazing to me. Also a great demonstration of the technology.
I was hoping that Tim would discuss the explosion of his homemade Pantelegraph at the end. Part of the charm of the show for me (used to watch it on TLC in the U. S. in the early 90s) was the gaffes and flaws that Tim and Rex left in the show (American TV was always much too slickly produced to do such things). That ending was the quintessential example!
Me too. It must have been an oversight, he usually elaborates on the ending scenes. In this case he looks so startled that one could imagine that the explosion was a (rather dangerous) practical joke from Rex.
@@mumiemonstret Hmm, good point about Rex.
@@mumiemonstret surely a staged explosion with special effects, now we see an early incident of Tim doing his own stunts...
I loved the "BT Approved" labels on walls behind the lathe-fax!
Back when unapproved acoustic coupling would get you thrown in to telephone prison.
@@tad2021 I know you're joking, but a major advantage of acoustic couplings was that, without a direct electrical connection to the telephone network, they didn't require approval
Is the big L on the cube wall shown in the intro a driver's Learner's warning sign?
BABT Approved. Now German owned.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Approvals_Board_for_Telecommunications
@@CyclingSteve Ow FFS. Is there anything in this country that we actually own? Because us tax payers PAID for the Dartford cross bridge (which paid it self off easily within the first 5yrs n then some, SO! They just continued to charge everyone for over 15yrs n to add insult to injury. They took away the booth's (so less people to pay) and now the French own it.
I'm pretty sure if the government found a way n the Queen was alright about it. They'd of already sold it to the French.
I have NO idea what's been going on with this country recently and when I mean recently. I mean for the past 20+ year's. But the Australians always have the best vocabulary, grammar and terminology to describe what's happened to the UK.
"Yeee naaa she's completely and utterly, ROOTED!" or "a complete fluster cuck"
This was actually a really important episode for me and close to my heart. I never really understood clock signals until i saw this in the 90's. Never forgot it.
I love that the FAX predates the phone by 30 years.
Tim, it's 3 AM and I can't sleep, and here you are.
Just like the 90's when your show was on The Science Channel here in The States.
Thank you, for justifying my insomnia these days, just as you did 30 years ago.
need to turn off the fax machine ;) its all that clacking it makes
And you are not the only one. . .
Literally me right now
Checking in, myself
3.50 am
The Medical industry has been one of the big holdouts on faxing. It was only 2020 when the NHS was banned from buying any new fax machines.
35 years into widespread computers, and 35 or 30 years into digital scanners and computer graphics capable of handling scanned documents, and people are STILL using ancient copper twisted pair phone cables to transmit analog outputs.
Same in Australia and the US. The medical industry seems to like fax. No idea why.
I saw I a brand new boxed one yesterday (2021-06-21) in my local UK, pharmacy, so still in use and still being purchased.
@@michaelfisher9671 I think there is some implied privacy and medical record benefit in faxing - a one-to-one device connection that is off of the internet - instead of a network that can be hacked and snooped
Spammers accelerated the decline. Those people who would spam business fax numbers with rolls of unsolicited unwanted advertising. An early look into how things would become.
Crikey, I'd forgotten about that - yep shape of things to come.
yep. the only reason we kept fax machines around is because the Health authroities are the only entities sending faxes. Today we still get faxes but we use a fax->email service as we have no physical fax machine.
WOW! I didn't know that was a thing. That's amazing. Thanks for sharing.
@@crochetemporium CRIKEY! That's a word you don't hear much anymore. How old are you? 😁
How many legit phone calls do you receive as compared to scam calls? I hardly ever answer voice calls any more!
Between this and the episode on Xerography, incomprehensible things that seemed like magic became simple science, and that knowledge changed my whole life. If I had to look back and pick out the most important thing I ever learned, it's probably one of these two episodes.
Yes...I would ask people if they remembered this show...I actually believe this show inspired the people whom are responsible for our now common technologies...The things Tim may describe as inscrutable, he has inspired in others...the ripples he's sent across the pond.
I have a lathe, you have a lathe... let’s send each other a fax!
I remember hearing weather fax on shortwave radio. I got an adapter to convert the audio from the radio and send it to my PC. Sometimes the fax was a Japanese newspaper. Apparently they sent these to ships at sea.
Weather fax (WEFAX) is still broadcast to this very day!
@@graemedavidson499 - Once heard, that characteristic cadence can never be forgotten. "Whee-whee-whee-whir-whir-whir-thump-thump-thump..."
This episode in particular stuck with me for many years. The Huffman encoding scheme and the lathe fax were the strongest memories. Thanks for putting up the remaster!
Pause at 20:50 and read the fax. It’s hilarious.
Ha ha, Cheers.
"...in bed" ha!
23:08 also. "Enema Drain Cleaners" lol
For those who can't quite make it out, I've transcribed the message here because it is thoroughly worth reading:
SERVICES
[date is quite unclear - I think it says 22 March 1992]
To all staff
Utopia Services Corporate Headquarters
Re: The media
In the last few weeks there have been several unfortunate "leaks" to the media regarding Utopia's interests, including a damaging piece in one of the tabloids claiming the paper we produced every year would cover a country the size of Belgium. Only yesterday, I discovered that a large film crew had entirely taken over our Eastern Region Headquarters. In future all media contact must be referred to our public relations division. Any staff co-habiting with a member of the media must henceforth be permanently accompanied by one of our P R representatives, 24 hours a day, particularly in bed where we suspect lapses in confidence most frequently occur,
I'm happy the cat scenes made the cut.
The episode was ahead of its time, with a unplanned cat walking into the shot, like today's youtubers.
19:00 - the cat vs printer fight is older than one might think.
Was there an option lol
These shows from back in the day really show things in such an understandable form. 😊
I was absolutely captivated by this episode when I was young. I’ve thought about the giant human fax machine once or twice a year ever since.
In the 1980s, design of the Volvo 400 series was done out of Coventry in the UK but the designs which were made on paper needed to be sent to engineering in Helmond, The Netherlands. Designer John de Vries cut the designs so it could be fed to a fax machine. In Helmond they taped the long rolls of fax paper together so they had a preliminary design in the office. Today this story sounds crazy because we'd send those by e-mail but then it was quite revolutionary.
is this why volvos were box shaped?
@@vsvnrg3263 Box shaped is not what springs to mind if you look at the Volvo 480 ES.
@@volvo480 bulbous angled and box shaped.
@@volvo480 , theres a website called "nice volvo mate" about a certain nissan model brought out in the 90's. ive got one of them and people have told me they thought it was a volvo.
Did the same with large drawings in the 90s. The machines where not limited to sheet length, it would just send whatever length paper you put in it, and on the other end it was also printed from a roll of paper.
I remember years ago when my Boss came into the workshop with a new fangled thermal roll Fax machine saying that this is the future, no more Teletex machines now! I will never forget the chiming handshake sounds the devices made when sending documents. Also one day the Boss was annoyed with a rival company so one night he sent them a long blank Fax by making a paper loop on the office machine and the other company no doubt came to their office in the morning to find an expensive pile of thermal Fax paper rolled out on the office floor!
And don't forget too those faxes we used to get from that Nigerian prince who is to be exiled from his country and has to urgently transfer 3 million dollars to your account....
A great episode! The whole show is of such quality, it´s incomparable to anything existing nowadays, and it has soul - thanx so much for the great stuff!
We'll never have TV like this again.
This series made such an impression on me as a schoolboy and this particular episode was excellent and really fired my imagination. I'm indebted to Tim and Rex!
Interesting Xerox came up. They ran the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and had the mouse and a windowing OS with the office metaphor al within their scope to commercialise. They failed to realise any of this. A young Steve Jobs paid PARC a visit... And the rest, like the fax machine, is history
Awesome, thank you, I’v enjoyed these videos since I was a teenager
Thank you both so much for another remaster. You and Norman spoil us.
"Enema Drain Cleaning" lol Thank you, Mr. Hunkin!
Did you read the whole fax at 20:50 ?
Tims videos always get a "like" even before I watch them - you are a very talented man Tim
Machine: Urgent beeping noises
Tim: I don't think it likes me fiddling with it.
Me: Best RUclips channel ever.
I remember this show and this episode quite well. I think it was on cable here in the states when I watched it. I still remember the animations and the closing music. Thank you for uploading this and letting me relive childhood memories.
29 minutes I didn’t plan for or thought I needed, and couldn’t put it down!
This is another of my favourite episodes, as a kid I reproduced the “wet paper and sawn off transistor” arrangement, took a weeks worth of lunch breaks in the school physics lab to get it working with the help of a very enthusiastic lab technician who thought the idea was wonderful
If I’d had access to a pair of lathes I would definitely have gone further!
That bit at the beginning is CRAZY. My god you don't see programs taking the effort to do shit like that these days lol I bet that was a NIGHTMARE to film with the wind and shit, fucking hell. Brilliant.
Caught in possession of a sawn off transistor 🤓
All semiconductors have the photoelectric effect. Which is why many of them are in sealed packages.
These shows were brilliant.
The best explanations I have ever seen.
How fascinating seeing this technology many years ago on my cathode ray tv, now watching it on computer with all the advances since then, I can only imagine another 30 years from now what we will be viewing this on and how we will see the current technology.
These were remarkable shows, we need these at this time, I feel alot of the younger generation has evolved into self emotional narcissists and have no curiosity aside from some conjured inward attention to self. The lathe was great! sync over the phone verbally and its still readable :)
30-something finding this now. wish I had been given this in my youth... this is some of the best science education/communication.
There are not enough thumbs up buttons for this absolute gold
I'm 35 years old, I never had the pleasure to see a fax machine in operation, it always seemed like science fiction and the technology of the future. Wow, I didn't know that the idea is that old. Today we have gigabit networks and streaming videos just sail accross the Earth from one end to another in mere seconds but the fax is still a mystery to me. Or at east it was until I watched this video :)
I'm 30 and unfortunately had to deal with them while i was a medical receptionist circa 2011. i was very much not a fan lol
The faxing demo outside with the signaling was very interesting & really helpful to understanding how it works.
I love the practical demonstrations of how things work(ed), specially when they simplify electric or electronic devices' functions.
Believe it or not, I still use a fax machine occasionally in 2021. It works fine over the VOIP line. It's easier than emailing at times. Fewer steps.
You can send one, but who will receive it?
@@mfbfreak Businesses, doctors offices, so forth.
I used to watch this on television.
It's a really interesting series.
I work for a city in the United States and we use software as well as physical fax machines still. I just was in a video meeting a couple weeks ago where they were having problems and they wanted me in the meeting for some reason. I do computer support, not fax machine support. They felt that my deduction skills were wanted/needed and so they included me which was nice. But at the same time it was like working for the telephone company and I know about cars so they had me sit in a meeting on how the company maintains our cars and trucks. ???
Within ten minutes we had it all figured out. I played a small roll in that I think though I'm not really entirely sure I added anything they didn't think of themselves, I just said it first.
Your show was THE first show that I saw that talked about how machines worked. If I wasn't shade challenged (color blind) then I probably would have gone into electronics instead of programming and computer support. I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED your show with you and Rex to the point that I just recently looked on RUclips for your shows and found these remastered versions (the picture quality on the originals didn't hold up very well) and I've been thoroughly enjoying rewatching them even though I remember for the most part how everything works because of you and Rex!
This ep blew my mind when i first saw it back in the day.
I can confirm that fax machines are still in daily use in New Zealand and are used to send scripts from my GP to the Pharmacy.
I think they're also still used for secure message transfers between solicitors
Excellent piece of television!! It is really remarkable, very unusual and creative, we don't see anything like this nowadays
this upscaling looks INCREDIBLE!!!!!
Huffman code, time sync, handshake procedure... All this nowadays is used in TCP/IP berkeley sockets, handshake to create the idea of a virtual "stabilized connection" with a client/server and huffman encoding is used to decrease the size of the packages/msgs sended. It's nice to see where these ideas come from. The fax message through the lathe is the coolest thing to see.
Excellent 👍
excellent episode. Loving everything about it, from the shop cat to the practical models and historical context.
I was watching say you love me a show made in 1995 and they keep using fax machines to communicate and I couldn’t understand how it worked lol. This makes so much sense now.
This series absolutely blew my mind as a kid, and ultimately shaped the adult I'd become. You're a (criminally under-recognised) legend, Tim! Thank you x
EDIT: Foolishly commented before the extra segment. The Ampex tour would've been bloody epic in itself! Wow! Though, as an acoustician, perhaps I'm a little biased. ;)
I remember watching your show when I was 5 years old. I am 37 now and takes me back to when I was a kid. I looked forward to your show back then and now seeing your shows takes me back to a simpler time.
Now museum pieces for offices. Amazing how quick things advance.
Lol the guy jumping the fence in the background when he could go around
Around the mid 2000s, my Dad was harassed by a fax machine calling our number.
The phone rang and all my dad hears is the noise from the fax machine.
He thought it's my broadband connection and I had to reassure him it is not.
The owner of the machine had put the wrong number in her fax machine resulting calling our number.
She phoned my Dad to apologise.
Harassment would be right as well. I believe the default number of retries is 8, your father was probably at his wits end by then.
The worse thing is if you put the phone down, it stays connected until the fax machine hangs up.
I picked up the phone around 5 to 10 seconds after I put it down and still hear the noise it makes.
I had a buddy once who used his computer's dialup modem to continuously redial someone who had pissed him off. This was early 90s, no caller ID and even PCs were not owned by everyone yet. He set his modem to keep redialing while he went to Pizza Hut for dinner.
That lathe fax and the homebrew pantelegraphs are some of my favourite memories of the series. Caselli would be proud of Tim and Rex.
Excellent as always..
Love the remastered versions of these! I only saw this recently but this is much better!
In 1996 I was hot for a fax machine and bought a Brother All-In-One unit for the home office computer. It was a way to communicate with the computer to the outside world before we got the internet. In 5 years it was already obsolete.
It's interesting to see how fast some machines become obsolete.
Even in 2021, Fax isn't completely obsolete. The legal and medical professions still enjoys fax for some things.
@@TomOConnor-BlobOpera Until 5 years ago I was working for an agency, where I had to fax my timesheets in every job I did.
@@TomOConnor-BlobOpera "Enjoys" 😝
@@TomOConnor-BlobOpera The odd thing is that digital faxes can just as well be hacked, like digital e-mail stuff can. It's all incredibly weird.
These are great! Can't stop watching them 👍💯
Really nice to see these programs again totally forgot that they were shown… Weather fax is still available on HF radio presumably for the long distance it covers.
Yes! My favorite one. Thank you for cleaning these up and uploading!!
So many great memories of watching this show! Thank you Tim for all of your fantastic work over the years!
So many brilliant demonstrations here. You and Rex had a great synergy. Thanks!
Thanks again and everytime for your contributions to the world. You are AWESOME!!!
One of my favourites, along with the lift episode. Your demo on the field is so memorable.
Thank you.
thanks Tim
I've worked in the "office machine" environment for over 40 years. This episode and the one on the photocopier I remember back in the 90's when American television broadcast the secret life of machines on I think it was the discovery channel. Excellent how you and Rex came up with the way fax is transmitted & received.
Fax Machine episode was one of the BEST. I learned so much from this one. Great to see it again :D
wow, I devoured this show as a kid but I don't think I ever saw this episode (or perhaps the whole of season 3) what a gift this channel is! Thanks Tim!
Another exceptionally good episode Tim! You and Rex were really on your game with the mechanical demonstrations! Thanks so much!
I leased a fax machine on a monthly payment plan, from an office supply company for my upstart business way back, and hardly ever really needed to use it very much, cost me a small fortune to have it at all. I offered to return it to the office supply company, and they told me to keep it as it was obsolete as being a thermal transfer unit, and they were updating to plain paper methodology. BTW...the thermal transfer copies I did keep became faint and illegible after a year or so especially when left exposed to sunlight.
I remember this show, it was wonderful! So happy to see it again!
I never got to see the third series back in the 90s, so this is all new to me.
Fax machines are still good as a fallback device when the internet goes down, or when signatures are required, only problem with older style fax machines was the thermal paper would fade over time and need photo copying to preserve it, it's funny how the faxing ability is still present in the current version of Windows 10 and hardly anyone is aware of it.
Since 99% of phone/fax connections go over internet anyway, you cannot use it if the internet goes down.
You'd have to have a private radio link.
HMRC still had analogue lines as a fallback, they still use leased lines while I was there a few years back
@Imran Ahmad: Thermal printer suck. I have a hard time getting decent thermal paper that is also the right size. I normally takes a few tries to get the decent shipping labels because e to dark or to light.
What a treasure. Your demonstrations are so very tangible - I love the lathe and the complex ad hoc handshake you and Rex manage. Thanks Tim!
This is a fantastic presentation. I wish I had this to see back in the late '70s when I was responsible for fixing the very last of the Magnevox "Magnefax" machines, just at the end of the vacuum-tube era. These machines, such as the Model 856, had germainium tranistors to control the drum motor, and a black paper that was coated with a talc-like powder that was banged off by a vibrating stylus to reveal the black.
All of "the secret life of" episodes I've seen bring me so much joy. Creative, funny, and unbelievably illustrative of the topics they choose. Love it!
This episode has been ingrained in my mind from a young age - Especially the string demonstration. Thank-you so much!
Hi Tim. Thank you very much for this series. I watched this one in Hungary on the ends of 80's. And this one is exactly supported my careers in the electronics. I best wish to you!
Excellent video thank you!! & you can clearly see the beginnings of the digital camera & the internet.
Amazing. Thank you!
The same principle was used in the Gesetner Stencil burner.
A light detector traveled across a spinning drum picking up the light and dark areas on the original photo or artwork. On the other half of the drum was a porous piece of paper, coated with a thin coating of wax, this was the stencil material. There was also a plastic stencil material for long run reproductions as the paper stencil would eventually give out.
The wax or plastic was melted away by an electric arc, faithfully reproducing the original
The finished stencil was fitted to a drum that fed a thick ink through the stencil which transferred the ink to paper.
The were used by flyer publishers and school (university) newspapers and other publishing jobs
So so very pleased you are doing these uploads. So informative even to me from an electronic robot programming and fault finding background. Fanuc and other robot systems. Great to see again. Thank you.
It looks quite nice. I wish all old videos looked this good on RUclips.
See, to me the end of this makes me say "He's so cool". It takes a brilliant mind to be able to make things like a Pantelegraph yet also be able to elaborate on the way it works and then animate the show to boot. I love this series and hearing Tim's stories about when he was making the shows! Much thanks for posting Mr. Hunkin, love from America
Как жалко, что эти передачи не показывали у нас по центральному телевидению😔
Absolutely love these shows. So I remember watching (whenever the TV channels had the good grace to show them) when I was in my mid teens and being amazed at the simplicity of the explanations for some of the more sophisticated principles demonstrated - also, the animations really made the shows complete - kind of a more serious monty-python like presentation of whatever was being talked about. Really have enjoyed your contributions so much! And, of course, not forgetting the vital Rex - always adding value to the shows with concrete demonstrations of how stuff worked! Thank You so much!
I had no idea the basis for fax tech dates back to the 1840's. Or that it even predates the phone. Unbelievably ahead of its time.
Hello Mr. Hunkin! I am in Canada, and I hadn't ever seen this show before! I first saw some of your 'components' videos, and then saw one of these restored shows, and I am completely amazed at the inginuity and effort you put into explaining and demonstrating all these things. The human sized sewing machine was an incredible idea! I always found the internal workings of sewing machines kind of mysterious, and you helped a lot with it! And I am 52! This FAX eposode, needless to say, was also full of extremely impressive demonstrations! I spend a lot of time pondering ways to explain some of these types of principles to people, just as an interesting mental exercise. I am just amazed at not only the ideas you used, but the amount of time you clearly put into these episodes! I don't know if you'll get to read this comment, but I hope you are in fantastic health, andI can certainly see why you get the respect you do from your fellow countrymen! Add me to the list! I only wish I had known about the show, and had access to it, when you were making it. I wouldn't be surprized if you had an affect on the average technical ability of your entire country! I am so saddened by the way things are now, people are just happy to know how to use things, but have little curiosity about how they work. Perhaps there are just too many distractions. Anyhow, I just wanted you to know there is a guy in Alberta, Canada who is extremely excited about all your work! Keep it up!
This was my favorite!
Oh I so remember this episode from my childhood. 👍🏻
I used to work in a print shop where sending and receiving faxes were one of the services. One day I sent a fax for a woman who walked in. When I handed her back her papers she got upset and accused me of not sending it. I showed her the confirmation report generated by the machine but she was unfazed. "I KNOW YOU DIDN'T SEND IT AND I WANT TO TALK TO THE OWNER!"
The boss came over and asked her why she thought the fax hadn't been sent. She said "because the papers came out the other side!" She thought the papers would travel through the phone line. 😂
This was around 1989. I also remember spending half a day trying to explain to a customer that an animated GIF wouldn't run on a business card but that's a story for another time 😂
Great video. Your demonstrations are superb. I learned about fax (facsimile) machines in the early eighties in my military electronics technician training, but I never had the opportunity to work on one in the field. These had the old helical print heads, but I think they used thermal paper. They were very interesting, but more interesting was the satellite receiving station from whence they acquired their data. I wish I had access to a program like yours back in those days. Thanks.