Chapter 45: Fax Machine, Plans For Monopoly, and Omake (?) (1/2)
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The link is also in the synopsis.
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Back to the time when Quinn was still in Hogwarts, and he had some time at hand. He stood in his workshop flipping through a small notepad, looking for ideas. The tiny notepad in his hand was where Quinn noted down the random project ideas that came to him.
”Let's see... typewriter, hmm, not today.”
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”A charmed pair of hands for a piano duet? Maybe when I am bored out my mind.”
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”Thermal vision eye drops... oh, this sounds interesting. Ah, but I don't have the ingredients.”
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”Artificial magical eye... Na, this will need a lot of research.”
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After bouncing off some ideas, Quinn finally found something that interested him and was doable for the time constraints.
”Fax machine,” spoke Quinn, rubbing his thumb over the page.
”Fax machine... meaning a scanner and printer. Two or more nodes connected to each other,” Quinn began mumbling as he sat down on the barstool in his workshop.
After contemplating for a few minutes, Quinn stood up and clapped his hands, ”Okay, let's go with this.”
He closed his notepad and took out a sheet of paper for drafting the rough idea.
”First, let's decide how to connect two device nodes to each other,” said Quinn as he uncapped his fountain pen and started to write.
”I would have to make use of the Protean charm to synchronize the two devices, but what should be the part to be synchronized.”
Quinn got up and moved towards a drawer full of scrap metals. He took out two spare pieces of copper from his scrap pile and transmuted them into identical square chips.
With his chin resting on his palm, Quinn charmed the square chips with the Protean charm.
”Here we go,” said Quinn as he touched one of the copper chips, and it turned to show a picture of an eagle. He glanced at the other copper chip and saw the same eagle picture on it.
Protean charm was the charm that Hermione Granger used to link fake coins to communicate with the members of Dumbledore's Army. A change in one fake Galleon, in her case, a master coin, would be magically reflected in the others so that when Harry Potter transfigured his charmed coin to show a new date for a D.A. meeting, all the other coins would also exhibit the same changes.
”I will need to formulate a customized version of Protean charm,” noted Quinn as he thought of things to accomplish.
Quinn needed to create a charm that would be scalable, which meant that he needed to figure out a way to add new devices to the existing networks of fax devices.
”I also need to figure out how to direct and isolate signals to particular devices.”
Another challenge was that, unlike in Dumbledore's Army coins, Quinn didn't need a master device that signaled all other coins. Quinn needed to create a method to send signals to intended devices so that not everyone would get a message for just one device.
”Well, that wouldn't be much of a problem. At least, I hope it wouldn't be a problem,” murmured Quinn.
Arithmancy models were needed to develop a customized version of a spell. He needed to define how the magic would be molded to create the intended effect.
Then there were things like if he wanted to use runes in the artifact or if he wanted to stick to charms. Then there were things like how he was going to use Protean charm for scanning and printing.
In the Dumbledore's Army coins, the changes happened when the master coin was transfigured, but Quinn needed the device to detect the ink on paper and work from there.
There were many things that Quinn needed to consider for making the entire system work.
”Let's start from the top up,” said Quinn and started to draft the schematics for the plan.
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George looked at the two pages in front of him, and other than the slight difference in ink, the contents on the pages were precisely identical.
He looked up from the pages and asked, ”How does it work?”
Quinn pulled a stool and sat in front of the table. He pointed his fake wand at the magical fax machine, and all heard a click from both the boxes.
The copper insides of the devices levitated out their wooden frame and floated for all to see.
”I won't go into details, but the device is a clever usage of Protean charm, transfiguration, some light spells, and few other things needed to sum up all of it,” Quinn said as he took a blank page and drew a letter envelope on it.
Quinn waved his fake wand, and the lower part of the paper tray slot came out, revealing the upper wall of the paper slot.
”You can't see it, but the upper wall of the slot where you insert the paper has thousands of pores thinner than human hair, and just above the upper wall of the paper slot, there is a hollow space filled with ink.”
He placed the paper on the top of the scanner of the other fax prototype and said, ”Now, watch.”
There was a blue glow below the paper before it turned green. When the light turned green, George and Lia watched as the exposed upper wall of the second fax prototype transfigured to make a protrusion in the shape of the drawn envelope.
”You see the shape of the envelope? The next part is when the pores in the copper would open up to eject a tiny amount of ink, every pore in this envelope-shaped outdent would eject some ink to print the envelope onto a new sheet. Right now, I froze the ink inside, so you can't see the ink come out,” explained Quinn.
He had taken the impression of the printer part of the magical apparatus from the inkjet printer technology and imitated the way they printed images onto paper.
”Whatever text or image is scanned on the first machine, the second would copy it out on a new page. And, you noted the speed; it completed the process within seconds,” spoke Quinn as he reattached the removed part of the paper slot and lowered the copper insides into the wooden case.
George tapped his finger on the table before asking, ”The idea is interesting, but this won't work in the real world. This is too limited.”
Quinn smiled and pointed at the magical fax replica, ”This right here is just a proof of concepts. I have schematics and models for a practical version ready to be constructed. I just need the materials, and I can deliver in a week tops.”
The practical version would be much like a traditional photocopier with different paper sizes, protocols that would not allow printing if there were was no paper.
Lia chimed in and asked, ”How many of these can you connect to each other? And, do you have a way to specify who the copy goes to?”
Quinn smirked and responded, ”There is no limit to how many of these I can connect to each other. Even if we create as many as magicals on this planet, there will be no problem in connectivity.”
Magic didn't have connectivity issues like electric and phone lines. There would be no busy lines or slow connections. The only limit was how fast Quinn's magical printer could print the pages. Everything else was instantaneous as magic didn't have the processing limitations of a computer.
”And, yes. I have a way to decide how to send the message to a specific person. I am thinking of using a combination of three letters and five digits. That would give us a total of over a billion (1,757,600,000) combinations to assign, meaning we can create a billion of these machines. The sender would dial in the code assigned to the receiver to send the message to the correct person.”
George hummed before asking, ”How long will it take someone to copy the product?”
Quinn shrugged and replied, ”It depends. If it is someone smart, they can figure it out within a couple of months. If I put in some effort, then I can extend that by a couple of months. If I really put my mind to it, it would take someone much better than me closer to a year's worth of time.”
George stayed silent for a moment before saying, ”That is an excellent margin. We can work with that. How much time would it take to train some people to build these?”
Quinn shrugged, ”Once again, it would depend on the person's skills. I can build these myself till you can train some people. I will build a manual for that.”
George nodded, and Lia suggested, ”How about we first test these out in our offices and shops. Get their opinions and see if it works well in a real workplace environment.”
Quinn was okay with that and actually supported it. Getting the product tested before rolling it out to the public was standard procedure, and it would help the product development. In the end, the product would improve before the initial release.