telautograph

plural telautographs

1. historicalAn analogue precursor to the fax machine, transmitting electrical impulses recorded by potentiometers to servomechanisms attached to a pen at the receiving station, thus reproducing a drawing or signature made by the sender.

   On Tuesday, March 21, was made the first public test of the telautograph, a long distance writing machine, the invention of Professor Elisha Gray of Chicago, which practically solves the problem of autographic communication over miles of wire.

   1893 April 6, “The Telautograph”, in The Iron Age, volume 51