Fax from the PC?

I'm from the "old' school which said "if you're gonna have any electronic stuff, ya better get 'em as components rather than all-in-one ". You know; turntable, receiver, pre-amp, tape-deck, etc. (What? Ya thot I was talkin "HI" tech?) Anyway... I have a separate printer and separate fax machine. I'm on a cable modem, but I do have a phone modem in the PC from when I was using the phone line.

So,o,o,o,o my question is: Is it possible to eliminate the fax machine and use my PC as one? I always have to print out what I want to fax from WORD, then run it thru the fax machine. It would be nice if I could just hit "FAX" and eliminate that whole step. (And all those $ 29.00 rolls of Sharp "Imaging Film ". My Fax # is my home phone #.

As a follow-up, if the above is do-able, how will I know if I'm GETTING a fax or if I've GOTTEN one? (My PC's "always" online.)

Is there a down-side? (FYI: we're talking 2-5 faxes a day, here, not hundreds...) Thank U Very Much!

 

This may be a good place to start:

http://www.slipstick.com/config/win98-wminstall.htm

 

miracleman, it appears to me that, what you need is
"WINFAX" it is a very good Fax program I did use it for some time. It is much better than the Fax that comes in Windows but then you do have to pay for it I think it is up to
"WINFAX 10" by now you probably can pick up a older version like 9 or 8 quite cheap and it will do a excellent job if you are on line permanent and that is what you will need to be as you can not receive if the PC is not on.
Mine was set to 3 Rings that means if the Phone rang 3 times and no one picked it up then the modem would receive the Fax and you have the option to setup your Printer for automatic printout.
Worth to have a look at it.
WINFAX is a product of Symantec
hawk22