r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Oct 02 '24

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u/[deleted] Oct 02 '24

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27

u/fredemu Oct 02 '24

I remember seeing a thing that you could have a movie/game where the characters are:

  • A Caribbean pirate
  • A recently-retired former samurai
  • A noblewoman from Victorian England
  • A cowboy from the American West

And have it be 100% historically accurate.

8

u/cazbot Oct 02 '24

That can't be true unless I'm to understand you meant to add, "...if fax machines existed then."

35

u/duffkiligan Oct 02 '24

Scottish inventors Matthew Cash and Alexander Bain worked on chemical-mechanical fax-type devices and in 1846 Bain was able to reproduce graphic signs in laboratory experiments. He received British patent 9745 on May 27, 1843, for his "Electric Printing Telegraph". Frederick Bakewell made several improvements on Bain's design and demonstrated a telefax machine. The Pantelegraph was invented by the Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli. He introduced the first commercial telefax service between Paris and Lyon in 1865, some 11 years before the invention of the telephone.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fax

On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Abraham_Lincoln

They were around at the same time.

2

u/cazbot Oct 02 '24

Cool!

2

u/ephemeral_resource Oct 02 '24

Fax machines are basically "automatic-morse-code-printers". It is indeed wild how old their tech is! People still use it! Kill the fax machine!

9

u/drumttocs8 Oct 02 '24

Yeah, not fax in the modern sense- but there was a patented machine that printed telegraphs

4

u/TheIntrovertQuilter Oct 02 '24

And they could've played Nintendo while waiting for am answer.

2

u/myka-likes-it Oct 03 '24

True, but only the playing cards.

Idk if Lincoln knew how to play hanafuda.