Modern technology has replaced many gadgets. Gadgets like rotary-dial telephone or black-&-white television have been outdated for many years now. But there are still some gadgets that are being used for a long time and would not be replaced in near future. When do you think the fax machine was invented? The technology of this machine seems pretty new and you might guess that it wouldn’t be older than 100 years. Well, you are wrong! The first fax machine was invented in 1843 in Scotland. Alexander Bain received the patent for inventing chemical mechanical fax machine on May 27, 1843. His machine was known as Electric Printing Telegraph. After him, a lot of researches were done on this machine, and it has come through a number of revolutions.
Frederick Bakewell made several improvements in Bain’s machine and demonstrated a telefax machine. Then an Italian physicist named Giovanni Caselli invented the Pan telegraph and established the first commercial fax service between Paris and Lyon in 1865, 11 years before the invention of the telephone.
By the early 20th Century, fax machines were prized by organisations like newspapers, which used them to transmit photographs for urgent publications. The military also enjoyed the benefits of people being able to fax maps and charts to and from aircraft at great speed. By the end of the 20th Century, the fax had become practically ubiquitous. The technology became a key part of the booming information age. It was flashy and reliable. But faxing was also a little irritating. Because fax machines have their own phone numbers, they sometimes erroneously call people’s telephones, blurting out unintelligible, warbling dial tones. There are still reports today of people plagued with nuisance fax calls. 
Perhaps more powerfully than anything else, it was the world-wide-web that became the biggest threat for fax machines. For many, the web very quickly replaced the need for faxing. But the surprising thing is just how long fax machines have stuck around, and the reasons for this are surprisingly complex.
Cloud services like Box and Google Docs have made it easier for consumers to share files without ever needing a hard copy, and companies are reporting less fax traffic than years past. But, while single-function fax machines fall under the category of “tech dinosaur”, it’s this long history that may be keeping the fax machine alive.
But industries like finance, law, and health care have long used the fax machine and continue to do so today. Multi-function devices that couple fax capabilities with printing, scanning, and copying remain in demand. But, declining in this particular field doesn’t mean disappearing by a long shot. So, you can expect that this “stone-aged” technology may not be ruling, but will be co-existing with latest technologies for quite a while in the future.