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From: dgis!dgis.daitc.mil!jkrueger@uunet.uu.net (Jonathan Krueger)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: The Way It Used To Be
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Date: 12 Aug 89 05:06:30 GMT
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zygot!john@apple.com (John Higdon) writes:

>Something that every reader of this group should do is take a tour of a
>local central office...[before the older technology is phased out]
>you must see this equipment operate to appreciate how it used to
>be. If you live in an area that still has functional electromechanical
>CO equipment, do whatever it takes to wangle a tour before it's all
>gone forever.

I agree.  I had the opportunity to see an old Centrex switching system
shortly before it was decommissioned.  And hear it.  It made noises.
Every connection caused a relay to make a satisfying click.  As a
demonstration of binomial distributions (average time to next click) it
was intellectually satisfying.  As a generator of low-frequency white
noise it was aesthetically pleasing.  It was a musical composition on
the definite making and breaking of connections.  And as the music
responded to the ebb and flow of traffic patterns, it provided a
metaphor for the rhythms of daily life, for individual decisions
against a background of group behavior, and even for the occasional
notable event: sometimes arcing would cause a visible spark.
Altogether, kind of O'Henry's symphony of the city, the sound of humans
but at a distance, the hum subsiding in the quiet of the night so that
individual events and characters become distinguishable, then becoming
lost again in the next day's activity.  The ESS that replaced it stood
mute, its fan noise constant and hypnotic regardless of the traffic,
with nothing to affirm the dignity of the individual call, its place in
the universe.  Of course it was cheaper and more reliable and more
flexible.  But it served in silence.  The old system had something to
say about its users and its use.  The new system had nothing to say
about us, which was perhaps just as well.

-- Jon