A new facsimile machine, capable of transmitting the entire contents of a newspaper across hundreds of miles in a few minutes, is being perfected here in the laboratories of the International Telephone and Telegraph Company.
Tests indicate the new invention may revolutionize methods of transmitting documents, news and business messages over long distances.
Business houses in New York will be able to send letters to clients in Chicago, St. Louis and Los Angeles as speedily as they now send telegrams. Furthermore the cost of transmitting and reproducing the letters exactly as written will be approximately the same as a telegram.
The machine, its inventors claim, will make it possible for the entire foreign report of a newspaper to be flashed across the Atlantic and delivered to the editor’s desk exactly as written by the newspaper’s foreign correspondents.
The perfected machines will transmit 120 printed pages containing 180,000 words in an hour. A laboratory model sent 60 pages an hour over a theoretical distance of 200 miles.
The new invention differs radically from telephoto and other facsimile machines. In the first place, it merely transmits messages in black and white, such as letters or line drawings. It cannot reproduce half-tones.
The second unique feature of the machine is that it transmits page after page without interruption. Other machines must be stopped between pages for adjustments.
This continues the Appeal’s review of news stories and headlines during its Sesquicentennial year.
