Old Technology
Does anyone know what this machine does?
 |
It’s a fax machine.
Where I work, we have a central fax room and this was one of the first machines used in that room back in the late 70s. As more advanced machines came into the market, this old junk was replaced and relegated to one of the store rooms. It re-appeared during our Y2K operations where we had an operations room to monitor activity in our many offices around the world. When we first saw it, we all asked the same question.
What is that thing?
Even before Operations Y2K ended, an idea came to mind. We often couldn’t wait to have messages sent up to the central fax room to be faxed out, or to receive messages faxed to us via that same room. The old fax machine was still working, and it wouldn’t cost us anything to ask for it to be transferred to our department. So we asked and we were given.
This old junk of a fax machine has served us since early 2000. And now it has been retired. Cuz the fax lady in the central fax room is retiring, and rather than have one staff dedicated to sending out faxes all day long, the company has decided to let each department have its own 3-in-1 photocopy-fax-printer. Here’s ours:
 |
This is a really cool machine. It does just about everything, except perhaps make coffee.
I’m so pleased with the new 3-in-1 that I’ve set it as my work PC’s default printer.
I’m not sad that the old junk has been retired. There were times when even a one-sheet document would not go through and we’d get a horrible beeping noise. But … it has been useful. At least, we didn’t have to send and receive faxes the way the other departments have been doing.
