The "belinographe" (a.k.a. belino) is the ancestor of the fax machine. Designed by french inventor Edouard Belin in 1907-1912. It used to allow the transfer of pictures: a telephoto transmitter. According to adventures in cybersound:

His invention involved placing an image on a cylinder and scanning it with a powerful light beam that had a photoelectric cell which could convert light, or the absence of light, into transmittable electrical impulses. The Belinograph process used the basic principle upon which all subsequent facsimile transmission machines would be based.

(picture source) Why do I blog this? it's an interesting protozoic fax machine. I like to observe early representations of today's object (the fax is not a yesterday object yet).