Back when businesses which made deals ‘over the pond’ really were big, the only way to break news of your latest Supermousse shipment was via Telex, an important-looking metal bench incorporating a typewriter keyboard, a telephone dial, and a constantly chattering teleprinter styled in the Results Service manner, attended by a perennially busy yet unruffled secretary and routinely consulted by a stern-looking executive who would frown, tear off a sheet of recently spewed-up paper, study the figures, then frown some more. Then the fax came along and spoiled everything by being desk-mounted instead of desk-engulfing, plasticky instead of metallic, whiney instead of clattery, and easily available in Ryman’s of all places.
iStuart
February 9, 2010 at 2:27 pm
I have to correct you on the size of the first faxes. I was at Airtours in 1984 when we got our first one. It was at least 60cm x 60cm x 20cm and weighed about 15-20KG and it was 100{30e2395aaf6397fd02d2c79d91a1fe7cbb73158454674890018aee9c53a0cb96} made of metal. I looked at it and I said “Why does it say FAX on it?” and my boss replied it’s short for facsimile” “Oh” I said. (It was a month or two before we got one installed in a resort, and, therefore, able to see it in use.). We still used the telexes for years after because so few companies had faxes then.
johnnyboy
February 9, 2010 at 3:19 pm
We got a fax machine installed in our office @ 1986. It used thermal fax paper, which we always ran out of at the most inopportune moments (mainly because we kept tearing big reams off so we could play thermal noughts-and-crosses with our fingernails). It was a replacement to something called ‘Mufax’, which was a huge (and I mean huge) wet-paper – A3 sized – jalopy thing that printed off aviation charts using a helical scan roller and blade on the other side. Very Heath Robinson, but it worked I suppose.
johnnyboy
February 9, 2010 at 3:27 pm
..oh, and we had a Telex machine as well, but it was small and had a green screen (said Telex on it – so must be correct), so we didn’t have the 4.45pm footy results-type clatter drowing out the beep from the upstart fax machine in the corner
Adrian
February 9, 2010 at 3:58 pm
LOL – presumably the same sort of ‘executive’ who would say things like “I need that report by close of play today!”
Richard Davies
August 10, 2010 at 8:42 pm
I can remember seeing old letterheads with a telex number on & wondering what it was for.
Apparently companies with a telex machine could have their telegrams relayed through rather than the post office sending someone round on a moped.
Geoff Kole
December 9, 2010 at 2:36 pm
My Dad’s office had one and there were only a few “girls” in the day who sent them regularly. They had truncated messages such as…. Need more metal//Stop//What happened?//Stop//Urgent!//Stop
I figured out how to send telexes however the “girls” (grown woman) felt I was encroaching on their turf.
My Dad’s company was Generation Metals that was based in Hauppauge, NY 11788. We serviced the Aerospace Industry. RIP Bernard Kole (Bernie). You were a great Father
Richard Davies
December 10, 2010 at 1:41 pm
I remember Adrian Mole being confused by the telegram from his mum that read “Adrian Stop Coming Home Stop”.
Stuart Walsh
August 26, 2020 at 6:24 pm
I worked for a travel company in the 80’s and occasionally one of our customers would peg out or get killed whilst on holiday. When this happened the ops dept would contact a specialist company to bring the stiff back to the UK. That company’s Telex callback was EMBALM