On 26 Feb 2010 at 11:43, Brian McElroy wrote:
My Dad worked on these (mechanical designer designing
jigs and
fixtures for assembly) at QYX in Lionville, PA in the late 70's
There claim to fame was that you could type a letter and then have
another one type the same thing over the phone lines as an original
document....all pre facsimile machine.
It is said that the technology was stolen to help create the fax
machine.
I thought it was the Exxon Qwip that was the prototype for the modern
FAX machine. I can remember the spinning-drum types from much
earlier.
One related item that was deployed all around the steel mill where I
worked was the Telautograph--basically a machine that duplicated pen
movements on a piece of paper via a couple of drive motors and a
pantograph. You scribbled your tracking information for a batch; it
was immediately duplicated in a number of places, such as the quality
lab, the main office and other lines. The paper was fed from a roll.
I haven't seen one of those in many many years, but there must still
be some in existence somewhere.
--Chuck