HANK@barilvm.bitnet (Hank Nussbacher) (01/12/90)
I am looking for information about Faxnet products and integration to PCs. I am aware of Fax machines that can maintain lists of numbers to dial so that one can have a distribution list via FAX. But what if I am on a PC and I want to send my data directly from my PC to a Faxnet machine so that certain copies will be sent via Fax but some will be sent via e-mail so that the destination user will receive the letter in computer readable format. What of the reverse? Someone feeding in a typed letter into a FAX and the FAXnet machine sending it to some people via straight FAX and others via e-mail. Is that posssible? I am interested in hearing of any papers, documents, articles on this matter. Many thanks, Hank
"John R. Levine" <johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us> (01/12/90)
In article <2796@accuvax.nwu.edu> you write: >But what if I am on a PC and I want to send my data directly from my PC to >a Faxnet machine so that certain copies will be sent via Fax but some will be >sent via e-mail so that the destination user will receive the letter >in computer readable format. All of the major E-Mail services such as MCI Mail, AT&T Mail, and Compuserve do this already. Fax addresses typically look like email addresses to a pseudo-system named fax or something like it. To get data from your PC to the E-Mail system you can use something like Lotus Express which uses a proprietary protocol on top of X.PC to talk to MCI Mail or UUPC, a free PC implementation of uucp, which should be adequate to talk to AT&T Mail. >What of the reverse? Someone feeding in a typed letter into a FAX and >the FAXnet machine sending it to some people via straight FAX and >others via e-mail. Is that posssible? Not really. Current OCR technology, certainly current low-cost OCR technology, has a high error rate and I doubt anyone would be happy with an OCR interpretation of a document scanned in via a Fax machine. What is possible now is to receive faxes on your PC and treat the image as a graphic email message. One particularly clever implementation allows you to attach the fax card to a DID trunk so the fax card can have a whole lot of phone numbers, one per email user, and route the incoming graphics messages based on the number called. Regards, John Levine, johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl
tronix@polari.UUCP (David Daniel) (01/31/90)
Your problem could be at the receiving end of the FAX transmission. If
the receiving FAX is looking for a Calling Tone ( a pulse that
identifies itself to the other FAX) and there isn't one, it could
assume the answer is voice. The opposite is true also. If YOUR machine
wants a Calling Tone and doesn't get it, it could assume that it was a
voice answer.
--- "What's so funny 'bout peace, love & understanding?"
Elvis Costello