Goodbye, the Zeroes; hello, the Teens. Here’s to three things that are becoming obsolete in 2010: paper, death and the facsimile.
I sent my first fax in 1985. I was filing a story from Tokyo, Japan, getting ready to telex it, when the lady in the business office of my hotel pointed to a machine buzzing in a corner.
“Send your long message by facsimile, sir,” she suggested. “It’s much cheaper.”
“What a wild contraption,” I said dubiously. “Never used one. Are you sure it works?”
“I guarantee it,” the Tokyo lady said, and she was right. The machine worked like a charm. For the next number of years being able to fax things changed my life, until galloping communication technology superseded it. Current computers don’t even come with software for sending and receiving faxes any longer. The cutting-edge technology of facsimile went from state-of-the-art to obsolete in about two decades.
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I won’t miss the fax machine. Why bother creating a new document when one can scan & email?
Just the fax ma’am.
As governments like to say ‘just the tax ma an.’ We’re here to look after your interests.