DJA wrote:
Ralph Shumaker wrote:
But then the all-in-one would have to be able to somehow get the
scanned image to the PC, which so far, I understand to happen somehow
by magic email.
I just don't know how this email (or image) is supposed to get from
the all-in-one to the PC, whether via phone line from the fax portion
of the all-in-one to my ISP then back to my PC (again via phone
line), or via USB (or ethernet, or wireless) directly to some email
server that I probably have to set up on my PC, or via pixie dust, or
via magical incantations. From what has been explained to me so far,
I'm betting on one of the latter two. (Seriously.)
I think you are over complicating your conception of how it works. So
I'll give you an overcomplicated explanation of how it all works.
I'll assume you have no lack of practical understanding of how a
printer gets its information on what to print from the PC, and that
you have equal understanding on how a PC receives an image from a
stand-alone scanner.
In the cases of both printer and scanner being stand-alone units, you
will naturally have one cable each from the PC to the printer and the
scanner. For most modern consumer class devices, both scanner and
printer will use USB to communicate to the PC.
It's also possible of course that the printer may be a Parallel port
(PIO) type, or even have its own Ethernet port. Older scanners used
the SCSI interface and I believe some high-end scanners have Ethernet
ports.
Leaving out the FAX functionality for the moment, consider that once
the functionality of scanner and printer have been mechanically
integrated into one package, there is no longer a need for one cable
each from the scanner /and/ printer portion of the All-in-one package
(AIO) to the host PC. And given enough internal firmware logic
(smartness) in the AIO it's also logical that a host PC may not be
needed. In any case, the data gets to (the printer portion of) or from
(the scanner portion of) the host PC (or network) in the same way as
it did with the equivalent stand-alone units.
In the case of printing, the host PC (or some PC on the network) is
responsible for pre-processing the file to be printed. For scanning, a
PC (somewhere) is also responsible for post-processing the scanned image.
Now let's add the FAX functionality to the mix. The FAX functionality
might merely be a FAX-modem inside the big ugly beige box. Add a
keypad on top and you have a complete FAX machine. In fact, a real FAX
machine is just that: a modem, a scanner, and a printer - all in one
package. Think of an AIO printer as a FAX machine in which you can use
some of the three functions independently of the others.
With a non-FAX All-in-one, software will be needed on the host PC to
add FAX capability: the software
1) tells the scanner to scan the source document,
2) post-processes the scanned image to a file, and
3) sends the file over a FAX-modem within the host PC.
With an AIO which includes FAX capability the process would be similar
except that there might be a phone line connected directly to the AIO.
The FAX process would look like
1) Scan document,
2) send scanned data to internal software, which
3) post-processes data to a file and
4) sends the file via modem over phone (or via Ethernet over network)
to a pre-selected destination.
No real magic involved over the way FAXes have always worked except
for the packaging and the the addition of an Ethernet port (on-board
or on a hosted PC) and some built in software which knows about email.
OK, here's the part where someone threw me for a loop. How does this
"built in software which knows about email" send email to ..., say...,
anywhere outside the AIO? You drafted this explanation to answer
something I wrote above.
<repeating myself>
I just don't know how this *email* (or image) is supposed to get from
the all-in-one to the PC, whether via phone line from the fax portion of
the all-in-one to my ISP then back to my PC (again via phone line), or
via USB (or ethernet, or wireless) directly to some email server that I
probably have to set up on my PC, or via pixie dust, or via magical
incantations. From what has been explained to me so far, I'm betting on
one of the latter two. (Seriously.)
</repeating myself>
(Emphasis on "email" added. And thank you for explaining the path of
the image. It cleared up a few things for me.)
Basic functions of all-in-one-with-fax attached to PC:
[snip]
7) Outgoing Fax from PC file: Who-knows-how file comes from PC,
dials, and sends.
Source document is scanned by scanner component of All-in-one (AIO).
Image is sent to PC via USB or Ethernet. PC dials modem and sends file
or sends file to appropriate network address. Or AIO is smart enough
to send image itself over phone or Ethernet. Also source document may
already be in a file format so scanning step can be skipped.
You did well with the previous six items. But on this one, you lost the
perspective that the fax is in the AIO, not the PC. Item #7 here has a
file on the PC going to the AIO (with fax built in) which somehow knows
that it is supposed to send it somewhere.
8) Did I miss anything?
You wanna rethink that question? ;-)
Not to ignore the wink, I don't get it.
[snip]
No transfer between the photo card and the PC?
If you want, I'm sure that's technically possible. It's a requirement
on Kodak's EasyShare printer-docks: you can't get the picture from the
camera to the PC without the printer-dock. But other than the silly
Kodak exception, if you wanted to read a camera's memory card (e.g. to
edit) on your PC, why would you want to do it from the printer?
Why would you want to have a separate reader if the printer can read it?
The point of the the memory slots on the printer is so you can print a
limited number of sizes of pictures directly from the camera (so to
speak). Hopefully your pictures don't need any pre-printing surgery.
Thereby giving you a good reason to get it from the printer memory card
reader to the PC.
[snip]
For reference, here's that other set again:
Basic functions of all-in-one attached to PC with fax/modem:
4) Incoming Fax to hard copy: Phone rings, PC answers, receives
image and goes to step #1.
Yes.
Whatever step #1 was. You clipped that. But I guess I can pull up the
email I sent with it intact.
5) Incoming Fax to PC file: Phone rings, PC answers, receives image
and stores to file.
Yes. Print to file rather than print to printer.
6) Outgoing Fax from hard copy: Do step #3, then PC somehow knows
this is a fax and where to send it.
PC knows nothing. ;-) Seriously, Software running on the PC assume
it's a FAX because you told it through a software application. It's no
more magic than sending a FAX from a dedicated FAX machine: you push a
bunch of buttons on the top panel to tell the machine what to send to
whom.
7) Outgoing Fax from PC file: Who-knows-what program sends file out
via fax.
Are you assuming a file is not created in in (6)? It is:
A) Place document on scanner
B) Scan document to file
C) Post-process file (save, print, FAX, email, etc.)
(6) uses all three steps. (7) uses only step (C).
I was assuming nothing except that these steps (1-8) were *not* steps,
but separate items independent from one another. (I made reference from
the latter items to previous items only to save typing since the
previous items were subsets of some of the latter ones.)
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