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The [[fax]] was desperate the last stand of the true analogue communication: a fax started out life as a piece of paper and ended up as one: a horrid, waxy, faded piece of parchment resemblent of the [[Loo paper rep|loo paper]] you used to get in nasty educational establishments. | The [[fax]] was desperate the last stand of the true analogue communication: a fax started out life as a piece of paper and ended up as one: a horrid, waxy, faded piece of parchment resemblent of the [[Loo paper rep|loo paper]] you used to get in nasty educational establishments. | ||
Granted, there was a digital component to a fax transmission — the document was digitised and send across a PABX network as a series of ones and zeroes — only to be undigitised and rendered full useless at the other end, the usable digital information lost forever in a squeal and whirr of odd boinky noises and static. So close, but so far away. | Granted, there was a [[substrate|digital component to a fax transmission]] — the document was digitised and send across a PABX network as a series of ones and zeroes — only to be undigitised and rendered full useless at the other end, the usable digital information lost forever in a squeal and whirr of odd boinky noises and static. So close, but so far away. | ||
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]]. | 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]]. |