ianf@nada.kth.se (Ian Feldman) (03/29/90)
Last year the Relisys Corp. (of California, USA) announced a new
product with an interesting profile: a stand-alone fax machine, that
was controllable from either MS-DOS or a Macintosh, while also being
capable of serving as a personal scanner, printer and a copier.
The product's specifications appealed to me as I happen to consider
all-electronic reception of faxs to be something of an anomaly; faxs
are meant to be read on paper, not primarily viewed onscreen. At
the same time I do concur that sending out faxs from a computer is a
far more agreeable proposition, than doing it via manually-fed paper
printouts. Alas, faxs mean graphics, so having a fax-board only,
without access to scanner hardware, is somewhat of an anomaly too.
Knowing however that the technologies of (laser) scanning/ copying
and printing/ faxing are slowly merging I've been waiting for quite
a while for such a product combo to appear on the market. I might
be even tempted to pay premium price for having all these functions
in a nicely integrated _single_ package on a table.
Alas, judging from the manufacturer's (very skimpy and superficial)
product information that has recently fallen into my lap, the actual
product seems more imperfect than promises above.
To start with the Tefax, made by TECO Electric & Machinery, Inc.,
one of Taiwan's major fax manufacturers, appears to be built on top
a very simple fax/ thermal printer mechanism. This apparently being
the cause of its (euphemically speaking) substandard print/ copy
quality. Reading a reprint of a review (in the L.A.Times, August
3rd, 1989, IV/3, by Richard O'Reilly) we also learn that it is "not
exactly a four-in-one wonder machine", mainly due to deficiencies in
the supplied version of MS-DOS software. Tefax is said to perform
flawlessly as a fax, but found wanting in other respects: as a
copier/ printer (flimsy thermal-coted paper, single sheets only) and
as a scanner -- low scanning resolution, present version of software
unable to save images in other formats than the Tefaxcom's own. The
"coming version 2.0" of the software is said to offer conversion of
scanned images into "several popular graphic formats" along with
external printing on a H-P LaserJet. The new Macintosh version of
the software, available "after August" for a price US$ 200 above
that of the PC-version, is mentioned as also being able to receive
faxs in the background. The presence of a built-in carrying handle
is noted, but not directly offered as any mitigating circumstance.
Needless to say, mine is just an impression, arrived at on the basis
of reading between the lines of the above review. Still, I've no
means to judge better from my position (Stockholm, Sweden). It may
be that Relisys has by now ironed out some of the deficiencies and
that Tefax, equipped with new software, is starting to look like a
nice machine to have for single/ private use. I'd therefore like
to hear from anybody who has actually seen/ used one recently,
hopefully controlled from a Macintosh. You do have phones (and
faxs) in California, don't you?
Follow-up to alt.fax only, please
Tefax -- list price US$ 1495.- MS-DOS/ US$ 1595.- Mac OS
-----
Relisys
320 South Milpitas Boulevard
Milpitas, CA 95035
phone: (408) 945-9000
fax: (408) 945-0587
--Ian Feldman / ianf@nada.kth.se || uunet!nada.kth.se!ianf / "How can men &
women ever reach understanding? They're not even of the same sex."