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Danyll Wills

ONE day the perfect office machine will be invented that will handle all the things we want: faxing, printing, copying, scanning and making coffee. Until then we will have to deal with things like the Lumina Series 2000.

This product works in combination with a printer to provide most of the features mentioned. It can be used with its own keyboard or in conjunction with a personal computer.

Alone, the Lumina 2000 can only send faxes. It is not really meant to be used in this way, although it could be used as a second fax to send things, thereby freeing the first machine to receive only. There are no doubt those who would find this useful.

The real intention, however, is that the Lumina should be put to work with a printer and a personal computer.

With the full setup installed, it should be possible to fax, scan, print and copy without too much fuss.

Once everything is ready to go, you have two ways of sending a fax; insert a page into the Automatic Document Feed (ADF), or send a file from your PC to the Lumina.

This is an extremely convenient way to do things. With a fax-modem, sending word-processed documents is easy, but there are times when you want to send someone an article from the newspaper and you cannot do it unless you also have a separate scanner. The Lumina eliminates this kind of problem.

Another feature of the Lumina is that if the person at the other end also has a Lumina, you can send files, too.

This function is called the Binary File Transfer (BFT).

The protocol used for this is T.434 and any modem that supports this would also be able to receive the file.

Remote print is almost the same thing as faxing except that instead of sending a fax you send a print. This depends on having another Lumina at the other end. It is rather like being on a network except the printer can be anywhere in the world that is accessable by telephone.

As a fax, the Lumina will either print directly to the attached printer or, if none is attached or the printer is not turned on, it will store the fax data and then print it out the moment the printer is ready.

This makes the Lumina a complete plain paper fax.

The number of pages that can be stored will much depend on the memory configuration of the Lumina.

The Model 2096 comes with 256 kilobytes of memory and can hold eight pages of normal text and four pages of fine text. The 2144 Model has one megabyte of memory and can handle 59 pages in normal mode and half that in fine mode.

The Lumina gives you all the controls that you sometimes wish you had with a real fax machine. On the left are keys for each letter of the Roman alphabet, arranged in alphabetical not QWERTY order and in the middle is a 10-key pad. The keys for the alphabet, though not in the order of a normal keyboard, are still useful. If you have ever tried to enter your name, organisation and telephone number on a normal fax machine you will understand how useful a full complement of letters can be.

Although not yet the office machine to eliminate all office machines, the Lumina comes pretty close. If you have a second office and put one there as well, you can have the best of both worlds.

The Lumina retails for about $4,500.



More than a simple fax