*Phone ringing*
This is a 1989
Panasonic Easa-Phone fax machine and this is a proper old-school fax machine
Not one of those weenie modern ones that are really just a glorified inkjet or laser printer
This is not a plain paper fax machine
Instead it uses these old rolls of thermal paper
that curl up and turn yellow and fade and it comes out one big long continuous sheet that you have to
Tear off when you're done. So while the few people who are still using fax machines today
mostly real estate agents and
Lawyers offices are thrilled to have the modern versions that print out the pages just like a normal printer
I was actually very excited to find this at the thrift store recently, especially considering that it's in working condition
When I plug it in it says check OGM/BATT
OGM means that outgoing message on the built-in answering machine which uses a micro cassette
But the outgoing message, which is what people hear when they call you
And this thing picks up is actually recorded on a chip inside
So if this thing loses power and there's no battery backup to save it. You'll lose your outgoing message
as for those batteries *Beeps*
Yes, I know... they're in here
and I did have to clean out a bunch of old batteries and because it would be appropriate since this is a Panasonic I
put in new Panasonic batteries
So if you have one of these make sure you check these batteries
Because it may find a surprise if they've been in here long enough
and
It came with the paper. I was actually quite surprised that the paper came with it was still good
Although it was all curled up around this roller here
because
You can see how it comes out curled
And it may tend to get wrapped around this roller instead of coming out the back there
You can see the instructions for loading the paper
Definitely not as simple as putting paper in a modern printer. That's for sure. They say to use the original Panasonic paper
Otherwise print quality may be reduced an excessive thermal head wear may occur
But as far as I know this may still be the original roll paper that this thing came with when I was new
See you pull it out. So it's sticking out the back and then you push down the cover on top of it firmly
And they may can tear off
And there and when we try to record that outgoing message, it says to push direct and OGM button simultaneously
Until a beep is heard *Beep*
Hello you've reached this 1989 Panasonic fax machine, please leave a message after the beep
*Message Plays*
This is Chris Morrissey with Ford Motor Credit company, could someone please return my call at six nine one
zero three three four
Thank you very much
Those are some of the message that we're on this original tape when I got it
Battery low. What are you talking about? I just put in new batteries
This thing may have some quirks about it, but overall it seems to be working. Okay, this is a fully functional
Telephone answering machine fax machine
And one thing I could do even before I hook this up to a phone line and actually use it to send and receive
Faxes is I can make a copy because this also functions as a very low quality
Copying machine, so I have this document here. I print it out on a laser printer. So it's very good quality
very crisp and clean text you can see
Grayscales are
Perfect. So let's try to make a copy of it on this. I
Believe it goes facedown. Is this slot here?
Until you hear a beep *beeps* and then you hit
START/COPY I get a choice of standard resolution fine resolution or halftone
Which is for doing grayscale, you can also do normal or darker, but this is pretty dark text
So I shouldn't need to darken it. So I'll leave it on standard and I'll do a copy here
There it goes
And you can see the copy coming out in the back it's already yellowed and
What I think is really cool this
thermal paper prints and blue
It's almost like a mimeograph
So there we can see our copy and there you can see the quality of the text
it almost looks like a dot matrix printer due to the low resolution and
Of course that grayscale was totally lost but this is what you get when you use one of these thermal paper fax machines. It's already
Turning yellow. It's already curling up and you have to tear it off at the end
Cuz it doesn't cut the sheets
And it's just that I can't get across the texture on video of course, but it has this
different texture than normal paper
because it has that thermal coating that this thing actually burns to make the
Text come out dark
and
It turns out they actually sold thermal paper in different colors
Instead of just white or what really comes out and slightly yellow
But I did not know they had thermal paper that prints in blue because when my parents had a fax machine similar to this
many years ago
Its paper print out in black not blue
So there's your thermal copy compared to the original
Another thing I can't get across on video is the smell of this kind of thermal fax paper
Has a very distinctive chemical smell to it. Now as for testing how this thing actually sends and receives faxes
I found an old forum post from 2012 about the HP FaxBack service
Which if this is still active, what it will do is you call it and send it one page fax
and then it will call you back on the same number and fax to you a
Reply to test if your fax machine is working, but that's from 2012. I have no idea. It's still in service
Guess we'll find out
So I put in my paper *Beep*
and I'm gonna call the number now I
Think that's a fax machine. I don't know try sending the paper it
Says sending page 1 oh there goes
There it goes, you can see how much it slows down
Isn't this exciting watching a fax being sent and 9,600 bits per second
*Beep* Means it's almost done
It's gonna finish any second now stop letting me pull out the paper it's still grabbing on to it there it goes and
It said one page sent ok, I
Guess I should turn on an auto answer because it's supposed to call me back and send me effects found it on HP's website
They still have it officially listed and it said they'll send you the return fax within 5 minutes. So it's not going to be instant
Just rang I heard it and now it's receiving I
Don't know if you can actually read it
but it says
Receiving page 1 I had it on the manual fax setting that's why I picked up right away if I had it on auto
It would wait a couple rings so that if it's a normal phone call it will give me a chance to pick it up
There it's starting to come out
Isn't that magic?
A document being sent over a phone line on a fax machine from 1989
It's still saying receiving... there it goes... and that's it
So, thank you
Hewlett-Packard even though I'm not using one of your products here for having this fax back system test
So isn't that neat?
You can send a paper document over a phone line and then receive an art paper document through the same phone line
One more thing I'm going to do is call this and leave a message on its answering machine
So I set it to auto I still have the auto answer turned on and this should pick up and record the message
Sonic fax machine, please. Leave a message after the beep
Okay, I don't know why it picked up after only one ring that's probably one of the options in the setup menu
I need to go through and change, but I'm leaving a message on my 1989 Panasonic fax machine
Answering machine on its built-in micro cassette recorder. Let's see how this turns out
Okay, I don't know why it picked up after
Only one ring. That's probably one of the options in the setup menu
I need to go through and change, but I'm leaving a message on my 1989 panasonic fax machine
on its built in micro cassette recorder. Let's see how this turns out. Okay
It sounded a little bit slow you have to remember it's using its original belts from 1989
so that little micro cassette recorder could probably use a
Servicing and probably also a new tape because this was almost definitely the original tape. It came with what it was new
And yes, I know it was copying an article from the onion in my introduction to this video
But I do think it's pretty remarkable. That was a fax machine. You can stick in a piece of paper
Call someone halfway across the world and on their end, their fax machine will print out that same document on another piece of paper
As something you can't do with a smartphone