Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!killer!vector!nobody From: jbn@glacier.stanford.edu (John B. Nagle) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Time marches on... Message-ID: Date: 7 Jan 89 18:41:14 GMT Sender: chip@vector.UUCP Lines: 20 Approved: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-Submissions-To: telecom@bu-cs.bu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 7, message 7 The John Crerar Library at IIT in Chicago had, and probably still has, a number of classic pamphlets and books on early telephony. I don't have the titles, but they included a pamphlet for the public describing, in great detail, with pictures, what happens when various types of calls are placed in a large metropolitan area with strictly manual boards. The level of detail is amazing; the functions of A, B and toll boards are covered, and in one scenario, a line is down, and its use blows a grasshopper fuse, triggering a minor alarm and sending craftsmen into the frames to fix the problem. There's also a large-format book on step-by-step switching, describing in excruciating detail, over many pages, the Strowgear system of step-by-step switching. The author wanted a full diagram of the switch on each facing page, opposite the text explaining the function being discussed, and this led to much extra space, which he filled with religious homilies. Are these gems still there? Somebody in Chicago might check. John Nagle