Fax inventor passes away

The inventor of the fax machine, Rudolfh Hell, has died at the grand old age of 100 years.

Although the German's most famous invention was the fax, he can also be credited with achieving a number of other technological feats.

In 1927 he helped develop and build Germany's first television broadcast station and receiver. Much later in 1963 he introduced the first ChromoGraph scanner which was the forerunner for the way images are captured for printing.

The fax, in its original carnation was known as the Hellschreiber and emerged in 1927. During WW2 it was used by the Germans but really came into its own as a business aid much later in the twentieth century.

In 1981 his company was taken over by Siemens and in 1990 was merged into Linotype AG to become Linotype-Hell AG.