From This Is True, a very funny weekly newsletter about all the wacky things that go on in this world, was an Honory unsubscribe for a person who died on my birthday but had made some good inventions. He had an unfortunate name, but information on him is this:-
Dr. Rudolf Hell. An inventor, in 1927 Hell invented a radio direction finder that allowed pilots to navigate by tuning in to radio towers. In 1929 he came up with a
process to break up images into a digital stream which could be transmitted over a telephone lines and converted back to an image at a remote location — the Hellschreiber (“Hell Recorder”) was one of the first workable fax machines. In 1954 he invented an electronically controlled engraver, which made it easier for newspapers to publish
photos. In 1963, he invented a color scanner, and in 1964 he invented the first digital typesetter, making lead typefaces obsolete. His company later merged with Linotype, which was renamed Linotype-Hell. He died March 11 in Kiel, Germany at age 100.