Ever
heard of Hell? I hadn't, either, but he is considered by some to be one of the most
important German inventors of all time!
Rudolph
Hell, who was born in Eggmuhl, Germany, on this date in 1901,
invented the Photoelectric Image Scanning Tube (TV camera tube), the
Klischograph half-tone photo-engraver (which revolutionized printed
press technology), the first practical fax machine, a color scanner,
and a computerized type-setter. Plus more!
Hell
has several nicknames: he has been called the Edison of the Graphics
Industry, the Father of Digital Word Processing, and Engineer of the
Century.
His
Hellschreiber is still used by amateur radio (Ham) operators around
the world.
Fax
= Facsimile
 |
| Hellschreiber |
A
fax machine takes all the information from one piece of paper—text,
photos, drawings—and sends it digitally over a phone line to be
printed (by another fax machine) on another piece of paper. Perhaps
one half a world away!
The
word fax comes from shortening “facsimile machine,” which
is what we used to call the thing a million years ago when it was
first invented. Once the name was shortened, it became insanely
popular.
I
don't know why we in America called the machine a “facsimile
machine” in the first place—it isn't as if a French or Italian
man invented the first practical version of the thing! But...maybe
it's just as well. If we ran around calling the machines
Hellschreibers and then shortened that name—well, it
would seem very odd to ask, “Do you have a Hell machine?”
or “Can I have your Hell number? I'll Hell you the
contract immediately.”
(In
German, hell means light, bright, pale, or light-colored.)
Even
in German, the machines are called der Fax, and the process of
using such a machine is termed faxen. Many more recent words
and words for newer technologies are the same around the world. For
example, the word for fax IS fax, not just in German, but also in
languages as varied as Hebrew, Spanish, and Japanese; it is the very
simliar faks in Afrikaans and faksi in Swahili.
To
learn how a fax machine works, check out eHow.
Also
on this date:
By
the way, if you want to read the opinion of Samuel Clemens (better
known as Mark Twain) on the language of today's birthday boy, check
out “The Awful German Language.”
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