golfmobile wrote:I too remember typing on that "wax" paper where the impression of the key "cut" out the wax, then strapping the typed page on the roller and rolling out the copies that had that purple ink. We called the machine a "mimeograph machine."
Same era, different machine, different process. A mimeograph (which you describe quite accurately) *did* use ink, a very nasty, gloppy ink, as I recall. Typing on the stencil did indeed cut away the wax coating, leaving a porous membrane that the ink could be squeezed through by the roller.
I've used both mimeograph and ditto machines. Ditto is much easier, but you can't get more than a couple hundred legible copies off of one master, whereas with a mimeograph stencil, you can keep making copies as long as you have any ink left. With a mimeo, you can make much more professional looking copies, too.
No, I don't recall those early fax machines. I have used a Telex and a TWX, though, which are basically big clunky electric typewriters attached to a phone line. You can just sit there and type in real-time, and the text will be reproduced at the other end -- but to make better use of your telephone-line time, you could pre-punch the message onto a paper tape, then feed it through the machine (at 10 characters per second) once you're "on line." Fax machines did those in, too.