Wasn't "earthlink" originally a pioneer e-mail service offered by > Western Union?
I think You're thinking of (sl)Easy-link (tm). It was around in the early 1980's. I was a subscriber for a while after they gave me a free account, but dropped it when they wanted me to start paying.
FWIW, in the little use I gave it, I formed an opinion of "suck". Case in point- the "vt100" mode wouldn't work nicely with a real vt-100. Trying to describe this to a support person was fruitless, as they were fixated that I must be using emulation software on a PC or something.
Ob FAX: A high school teacher of mine had a Stenofax machine in their office. I spent a week tracking down an 811a tube for the output amp so we could try with it (it had a mode to copy/cut mimeo stencels).
z!