A Fax Machine from 1938

Next time you complain about your newspaper delivery person running late, or moan about how your Sunday newspaper looks on your Kindle, I want to call your attention to a machine from 1938 that was supposed to deliver your newspaper by radio frequency and have it printed on a box-like device sitting on a table.

Now we make think of this as the original fax machine, but this device developed by The St. Louis Post Dispatch promised customers a new way of receiving their daily news.

It turned out the device was way too slow.  Slow as in your newspaper started to come through in the morning and it didn't finish coming through the machine until 2 in the afternoon.  The print was too small, and the 4 column layout was clumsy.

The receiver was manufacuered by RCA, and back it 1938 it went for the hefty sum of $260.  An antenna picked up the radio waves and put pressure on the metal bar beneath where the paper was fed.  The black and white print was picked up by an "electric eye" and the carbon fed paper received the waves and printed on the moving paper.  The receiver printed photographs as well as text.

Quite a feat for 1938.  Newspapers survived this scare in 1938, how will they fare over 70 years later?