Re: Any Verizon datacenter techs about?

[Larry Sheldon <larrysheldon () cox net>]

On 6/26/2015 19:44, Joe Hamelin wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 26, 2015 at 5:40 PM, John Musbach <johnmusbach1 () gmail com>
>   wrote:
>
> > .
> >
> > P.S. If there was any way to get a tour inside of there at least I'd
> > totally sign a NDA for that. :) Never been inside, let alone near, a
> > CO before.
>
> http://museumofcommunications.org/?page_id=12

There are three parts of a #5 Crossbar switch for which I have a special 
fondness:

The exerciser routine--late at night in a (sometimes spooky) dark, quiet 
office you hear a clicking  noise that come up from behind you and 
passes on into the distance in front of you,  After a bit, you realize 
that it is approaching again....and again, each time a little lower down 
as the exerciser operated EVERY crosspoint in the office, one at a time.

The Transverter -- a monument to the Perfect Kludge.

The Trouble Recorder -- a card-punch that punches a card every time a 
call fails, to record all of the equipment (and some other stuff) that 
was involved in the call.  The cards were BIG (4 inches by 16 inches, 
maybe) and I have no idea what the number of possible hole locations was 
and had printed on-the card a cryptic notation as to what each hole 
meant.  The most interesting thing was the fact that there were 
notations on both sides of the card--a given hole had two meanings 
depending on which side of the card the hole had been punched it.  Thye 
first thing you looked at was two holes (I forget what one of the 
markings was, bit one hole said "AMA" on one side and "Turn Card Over" 
on the other side.  (I was not a switchman, so the number of errors 
possible here us huge.)


--
sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Juvenal)