I suppose readers by now would know that I do love old technology in general, and watching the slow demise of voiceband modems has led me to conceive of a small project I would like to call Project FAX.
The whole concept of Project FAX was to have a phone number where people could fax me their last fax, as an inspiration to dust off their old modem, fax machine and or phone line and experience voiceband modem technology before it completely died out for good.
The faxes that are sent would be redacted of personal details, and if appropriate, posted online as a “time capsule” of their efforts. It is also an experiment to see how creative and far-reaching the internet and its netizens can be. I hope to receive many varied faxes, handwritten faxes, interesting stories, or even line art. Surprise me! (but please, nothing inappropriate).
The full details are here, and I encourage you all to have a think about it and to submit me a fax if they should feel bothered enough to do so. In some cases, you might not even have to pay for it as there are less authentic options which are free.
For those who don’t really want to fax and just want to know a little more about the technicalities, the first page underneath the category has some information along with actual recorded call samples. Now you can actually experience the sound of fax without faxing.
Of course, there are also other pages that you can explore, such as those about Telstra Faxstream (FOLDS) test, BOM Weather by Fax, etc.
As a bonus, here is a single page fax which you would get returned to your US phone number if you faxed a page to 1-888-HP-FAX-ME:
I suspect this too won’t be around for that much longer either.
Anyway, thanks for your attention and I encourage you to share this around as widely as you see fit. I look forward to receiving your last faxes!
Hi Gough!
I wonder how it’s going, can you please tell how many faxes have you received so far?
Interesting you’ve asked. I’ve received one. Namely, yours :). Thanks for that!
I suspect people might not be that interested in sending me a fax after all, but I’ll continue collecting for at least a year in case people change their mind later. Once I receive a small batch of faxes (10 or so) then I will redact/post them online in a group.
– Gough
I am glad to know that you received my fax successfully. 🙂
I will try to inform people on IRC about the project, hope to see some nice faxes soon!
Thanks for that 🙂 I really appreciate it! It’s an experiment – whether it works or not, I’m glad that I put it out there before it’s too late. Sometimes we have to try to know.
– Gough
I have used 888 HP FAX ME FaxBack at least a dozen times over the years. And Fax Toy, to verify that a machine faithfully captures and transmits images (rather than blank or noise). I can hardly believe HP offers HP FAX ME, a real service to customers. During last decade, Pavilion means “plastiCrap”, Envy means “plastiCrap screw wells under shiny skin”, PhotoSmart means “money vacuum Turbo”, printer division’s not-official slogan is “with drivers this bad, it’s a wonder we hold our jobs”, general customer support “ended yesterday, but you can try crying in our Web forum”, and LaserJet gradually became “winprinters”. It is a wonder, bean counters did not cut the FaxBack expense.
Good thing your Project FAX features ECM.
Right on! That being said, I’m not sure it’ll be around for that much longer, so hence why I put some effort into getting my “faxback” from HP while they still serve them ;). The next most popular one in the US, namely Brother’s, has been gone for a while now apparently.
– Gough
I’d like to participate in your project, but as I’m still using fax on a regular basis (at least in the office), my last business fax will be send many years in the future.
On a personal basis, I tried to send my latest fax from my computer by modem after moving from POTS to TV/internet/phone via cable and failed after what seemed to be working at first.
Hi Gerry,
I suspect that is a relatively common experience with using “newer” POTS replacement technologies that were not designed to reliably transport data signals. It is unfortunate, but you can possibly try checking your configuration to see if G.711a codec is used, or T.38 pass-through if your voice service provider supports it – some gateways that do not will have a call that starts off appearing to be successful and then fail once the first bits of data goes through, so maybe turning it off could increase the chance for success.
Otherwise it could be a sign of flaky fax software or modem/modem drivers. It’s fairly common – I can’t use Windows Fax and Scan with my Netcomm AM5050R3 modems because they will start the send and then abort with an unexpected error.
Other than that, the other possibility is that the international route being taken has some compression in a link somewhere, which could lead to failure as well – I’ve experienced that trying to go via VoIP to Norway, Czech Republic, etc.
Thanks for your message and your attempt and apologies that you were not able to succeed. The experiment will continue running – the Sydney number has been registered for the next three years, so hopefully everything will still be working.
Otherwise, you can try as I have suggested in the page itself to scan the fax as a PDF, and use something like myFax Free (https://www.myfax.com/free/), a working e-mail address to confirm (it takes a few minutes) and select:
– Australia
– Phone Number + 61 (0) 2 8064 1804
I have received another fax via this online fax method without problems, so if all else fails, you could try this.
Sincerely,
Gough
Thanks for your hints – I’ll have a look at my settings. As I’m still using fax, my “last fax” isn’t around the corner.