4 Sep
2009
4 Sep
'09
5:57 p.m.
On 4 Sep 2009 at 19:19, Tom Peters wrote:
We also have an ancient phone system on the wall at
some sites, right
next to the (smaller) Meridian system, that is entirely relay driven.
No electronics, just stepping and rotary relays. It's for the old
intercom system out in the bus lanes in the bus barns. It expects a
rotary dial 500 set (what most people call a 2500 set) and it's for
drivers to yack to the front desk, schedulers, etc. Only knows about
20 extensions. Really noisy to be standing next to the system box when
someone dials up a call. We used to run all the paging through it too,
until it started to get twitchy and we cooked up something else.
Heh, I remember those--during my college years, I did evening shift
on the (ancient) switchboard (shades of Lily Tomlin). Racks of lead-
acid batteries and something that went click-click-click, about twice
a second (selector?).
--Chuck