From the Latin facere simile, which translates to make similar. Technology that enables the transmission of images between paired transmitters and receivers.The transmitting fax scans the image document from top to bottom and from left to right, looking for dots of color -- most machines support only black and white, some systems will also support 256 levels of grayscale, and some will support a large color palette -- at various levels of resolution, as measured in lines per inch (lpi) and dots per inch (dpi). The fax machine translates the dots into data bits, which it compresses in order to reduce transmission time, and transmits through a network to the receiving machine. If the local loop is analog in nature, as is usually the case, an embedded modem transmits the digital data by modulating the analog waveforms. Just in case you were wondering about the origin and evolution of facsimile technology, Edward Davy invented the first practical facsimile machine in 1837, but abandoned the invention soon thereafter. Alexander Bain (1811