1990 Era computer room

[Rod Smallwood]

Yes I noticed the rarther fancy panels with the edgewise meters.
I'm begining to wonder if they might be for monitoring private comms 
circuits.
Sort of a comms test box.
The meters would be right for signal to noise and the row of buttons at 
the bottom for channel to monitor selection.

On 23/06/2015 22:11, Jules Richardson wrote:
> On 06/22/2015 11:43 PM, Christian Kennedy wrote:
>> I think the hint is on the back.  This is a story of Delaine Donohue
>> retiring from D&B where he created and ran the National Business
>> Information Center and the Central Data Collection Group between the
>> early 70s and early 80s.  He retired in ’89, so it’s not unreasonable to
>> assume 80’s vintage in the context of D&B — although the drives do
>> suggest earlier rather than later in the decade.
>
> "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" etc. - maybe there was significant 
> risk in replacing an old but reliable system.
>
>> so I suppose it’s
>> possible that these are comm processors — although IIRC most of the
>> original NCSS packet stuff was PDP-11 based.
>
> To me it looks like those are pairs of analog moving-coil meters on 
> the fronts, either side of the blinkenlights, which seems a little odd 
> (I mean sure, maybe one such meter for checking/monitoring power 
> inputs, but even then I'm surprised it would be right there on the 
> front panels). It makes me wonder if these aren't some form of 
> multi-channel data logging devices, rather than a general-purpose 
> computer.
>