FAXination
By Kevin Noonan
Copyright (c) 1995 Apple Users' Group, Sydney
Republished from Applecations, a publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia.
knoonan@cleese.apana.org.au
In the Mac and PC world those people fortunate enough to have a fax-modem (almost all modems sold these days are fax modems) have long had the ability to use the fax capability built in. We Apple IIGS users have had a long wait but now thanks to a program called FAXination we can also send and receive faxes direct from our computers.
To-be-sure there was some fax software around 6 years ago (produced by Applied Engineering) but that was send only and required the purchase of their specially designed modem. It apparently worked quite well, though I only ever knew one Australian Apple IIGS user who bothered to buy the modem as it lacked AUSTEL approval.
There is the usual good news and bad news about FAXination.
FAXination is published by Vitesse who are known for their excellent upgrade policy. Why should I make particular mention of upgrades? Simple... straight out of the box FAXination simply does not work with (according to reports on the Internet) more than 90% of modems!
That's right, Vitesse sold software that did not work! It certainly did not work on my Maestro Executive 144fm. I (and many others) felt that I had been "ripped off" by Vitesse. They made public statements after the programs release in February that upgrades would address the "few" bugs remaining in the software. I am not sure that the basic inability to do what the program is supposed to do is a minor bug!
I rather suspect that the imperative of getting the product out the door was considered of higher priority than getting a working product. I must admit to considerable anger (still) about this attitude by Vitesse. I paid my dollars up front and received a product which did not work.
Having said that, I now again draw attention to the good record of Vitesse in upgrading software. I have received many free upgrades of other Vitesse software I own -- notably the Quickie scanner software. So, has this happened with FAXination? Most emphatically yes! I have received an upgrade which does work! My Apple IIGS is now capable of both sending and receiving faxes. I have tested it with practically everyone I know who has a fax and it has worked flawlessly on both send and receive.
There are still major bugs in that I cannot "view" the fax (look at it onscreen), and when I print the fax my Apple IIGS crashes after it has finished printing. These are very annoying faults but I look forward to more bug fixes from Vitesse.
So, why do I bother with faxing from my Apple IIGS? Simply because I can! I have fax software for both the Mac and PC which hide in my home (and I must admit I rather prefer the Mac software to the current version of FAXination -- much friendlier to use and still more powerful). My main work machine is my Apple IIGS, my modem is connected to my Apple IIGS, and I really prefer to be able to work from the one machine without having to swap cables around.
FAXination is a combination of New Desk Accessory (NDA) and a "printer driver". The NDA goes in the System/Desk.Accs folder and the driver goes in the System/Drivers folder. There is an installation program which does this automatically for the new user.
All that the use has to then do is reboot (to make the Apple IIGS recognise the new NDA) and change the Direct Connect Printer in the Control Panel to the FAXination Printer in the Modem Port. When this is done the user then opens the NDA and defines certain data that the program needs -- the location to store the faxes and the phone directory are the most important.
You may note I made no mention of telling the program what sort of modem you have attached. The programmer has taken the approach of letting his software determine what type of fax/modem you have. The other approach used by the software I have on my Mac is to ask the user to specify the type of modem. Both ways have merit and fault. I must admit that to set up FaxSTF on my Mac I had to know that I could not use the supplied Maestro setting (for some reason I do not understand) but had to tell the program my Maestro used a "Rockwell chipset".
When FAXination is properly set-up it is a simple matter to send a fax. Choose whatever GS/OS word processor (or graphics or DTP program) and simply choose print. The resulting print will be to the modem. You are offered choices about the quality of the print mode. the program then converts the printed material to fax data and dials the number you choose form the NDA and sends it. Simple, really!
To receive a fax you either have the fax software set on automatic receive (which is a bit of a bother if you have to change desktop programs as it has to re-initialise the modem every time), or you choose receive fax from the nda.
Note here that I have referred to desktop programs. FAXination (being an NDA and using the GS/OS printer drivers) will only work in desktop programs. That means (for example) it will not work in AppleWorks or any other 8 bit program.
I should also mention that FAXination is very memory hungry, needs large amounts of disk space (for the faxes) and very slow. I have 5 megabytes of RAM in my Apple IIGS, a Hard Drive, and a ZipGS accelerator so I can survive better than most, but this software is not for those trying to run on a floppy disk Apple IIGS system with minimal memory.
All-in-all I am impressed with what has been done so far (there are other bugs besides those mentioned above that the programmer is working on fixing, eg. group fax send is not available yet), but I am still very disappointed by the approach of Vitesse in selling software that simply did not work.

THIS CONTENT COPYRIGHT © 2007, APPLE MACINTOSH USERS' GROUP, SYDNEY
Permission has been obtained to make this material available on the Internet.

Permission is hereby granted for non-profit user groups to republish this content.
PLEASE CREDIT THE AUTHOR AND THE SOURCE: Applecations, publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia

THIS PAGE COPYRIGHT © 2007, ANDREW ROUGHAN