emv@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (03/02/89)
I picked up the X10R4 distribution from xanth.cs.odu.edu and extracted the xfax program. You can find a bunch of stuff in x10fax.tar.Z on mailrus.cc.umich.edu (look in pub, I'm putting it there now). It appears that some work was done on this as early as 1981, and astonishingly enough the T.4 Draft Recommendation is published in its entirety as RFC 804. RFC 803 describes some work on reading fax images from the Dacom 500 fax machine under RT-11, and DCNET BOS or VOS systems. RFC's 798 and 769 describe getting bits from the Rapidcom 450, and a microprocessor-based unit called FAXIE designed and built by Steve Casner and Bob Parker. TOPS20 ran on the host. So -- we've got programs in CLU, L10 as a subsystem of NLS on Tops20, Macro-11 for RT-11, and X10, 8 year old RFC's....plenty of prior art, and standards to boot. --Ed