At 09:44 PM 9/4/96 EDT, Don Wright wrote:
>Please don't take this personally if you are a very fax-centric person, but
>I see no reason to perpetuate 200 DPI printing, scanning etc. It is time to
>move remote printing (read faxing) to the modern era. 2400 DPI 24-bit
>color scanning and contone, high resolution printers are going to be
>needed to fill the long term needs. Let's pitch the horse buggy whips
>and provide the solution that's going to be needed in the not too distant
>future.
I don't think "fax-centric" folks would disagree with you on the long-term
future here, and the T.30 fax standard has been improved recently to do most
of what you mention, including full JPEG color images with Ciel*a*b color
space, etc. If you are not a fax-head, you may be unware of these advances
(nothing personal). The only "Anchor" to the fax techology is the reality of
the dial-up telephone connection and the economics of transmitting huge
"print jobs" to remote (dial-up) sites. The printer-centric world has no
price tag on the size or complexity of print files and the like. So, 200 dpi
is still a reality for fax, and will be for some time on dial-up lines. I
don't think at all that because the idea of interworking the fax
infrastructure and the internet means we are trying to perpetuate 200 dpi
"printing" in a pure inter/intranet world.
HOWEVER, I would venture to say that sometimes you send faxes, right Don?
(Maybe even at 200 dpi (oh my!))
I find that there is a significant installed based (about 50%) that still
are not web-heads or email-heads, and continue to thrive on "low resolution"
fax. I think we can all admit that the paradigm of scanning here and
printing there is so fundamental that it will not go away. Plus, I wouldn't
mind sending even plain-text messages from the internet to those people who
prefer fax. I think it is safe to say that we don't need contone at 2400 dpi
to print these messages.
The Legacy-Fax-Device interoperability with the internet is a practical and
pragmatic solution to extend the reach of the internet to these users. I
don't think it establishes ANY restrictions on the use of 2400 dpi and
contone images (if indeed that is needed) for high-end internet printing.
I certainly support the sort of printing on the internet that you are
mentioning, AND, I recognize the need for internet-fax interworking. This is
not an either-or situation. We can have both.
-Raymond
/***********************************************************************
** Raymond Lutz Voice: 619-447-3246
** Director R & D, Cognisys, Inc. Fax: 619-447-6872
** MFPA EC Chair BBS: 619-447-2223
** 1010 Old Chase Ave., Suite B EMail: raylutz at cognisys.com
** El Cajon (San Diego Co.), CA 92020 USA MFPA: 1-800-603-MFPA
** WWW: http://www.cognisys.comhttp://www.mfpa.org
***********************************************************************/