Obligatory “There was a period of time where Abraham Lincoln could have sent a fax to a Samurai” joke.
That sounds wrong, but I don’t know enough about samurai’s fax technology to dispute it.
It’s mostly a “well, technically” kind of thing. First prototypes were around since the 1840s but the first commercial telefax service was introduced in February 1865, a little under two months before Lincoln was killed. Samurai were around until the late 1860s or early 1870s. I can’t quite find when the first telefax machine was operated in Japan but 1928 shows up on some lists.
So yeah, Lincoln could have sent a fax to a samurai if they both had traveled to France just a few weeks before Lincoln’s death.
And there’s no record that they did. Talk about missing a great opportunity
The fax received would have been a great historical artifact.
Wonder how they’d preserve the heat paper.
This should be a TIL post in of itself haha
This is your chance to make one. After all, today you learned that.
Kind of makes sense, since it was just an extension of the existing telegraph technology.
Most people don’t believe me when I say the Fax machine was invented in 1843… And no that’s not a typo
Well yeah, that’s true, but also, have to bear in mind it wasn’t exactly the same.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_telegraph
Lead me to read more about it. Some people used to read the news from the radio, lol.
Children read a wirelessly transmitted newspaper in 1938.
Perhaps today you’ll also learn about Hellschreiber. Old tech is really clever!
This makes me feel old
Yes.
