#6 Giovanni Caselli

Fax Machine – 1860

Giovanni Caselli was an Italian physicist. He is the inventor of the pantelegraph (a.k.a. Universal Telegraph or "all-purpose telegraph"), the predecessor of the modern fax machine. The world's first practical operating facsimile machine ("fax") system put into use was by Caselli.

Pantèlègraph is a makeup word from "pantograph", a tool that copies words and drawings, plus "telegraph", an electromechanical system that sends messages through a wire over long distances.

Caselli developed an electrochemical technology with a "synchronizing apparatus" (regulating clock) to make the sending and receiving mechanisms work together that was far superior to any technology Bain or Bakewell had. The technology is relatively simple. An image is made using non-conductive ink on a piece of tin foil. A stylus, that is in the electrical circuit of the tin foil, is then passed over the foil where it lightly touches it. The stylus passes with parallel scans slightly apart. Electricity conducts where there is no ink and does not where there is ink. This causes on and off circuits matching the image as it scans. The signals are then sent along a long distance telegraph line. The receiver at the other end has an electrical stylus and scans blue dye ink on white paper reproducing the image line-by-line, a fac simile of the original image.

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