Facsimile

The successor in “almost-immediately obsolete contraptions” to the telex machine, nowadays the facsimile machine is mostly useful for affording bragging rights, both for those who can remember having to use them and what they were for, and those who can’t.

A fax that ran out of paper was an important McGuffin in the denouement of John Grisham's espievie thriller, The Firm. Not to be out-done, Hunter Barkley’s forthcoming novel is going to involve a malfunctioning telex.

See also

• Dictaphone
• I’m not going to die in a ditch about it