#1 Crossbar switching machine

Here's some old video from back in the 80's that was shot of #1 xbar and #5 xbar machines that I worked in back in the 70's. The #1 is a full 20 - 20 #1 xbar(40K lines) and the #5 is a #5 xbar with 20 K lines. There's also some footage of an old #12 LTD with analog meters. Thought some of the old switchmen/girls might enjoy hearing that old sound of a running crossbar machine again - enjoy. Wasn't sure if this is the right place to post this so if the moderators would like to move it somewhere else please feel free.

NAB

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkXzljS74Nw

 

[SYQUEST]

Excellent video! What Central Office is this? I toured a few Xbar offices in the 1970s & 1980s. Also, attended a few Xbar to DMS100 & 5ESS cutover parties in the 1990s in California.

....JIM....

 

[nabisho]

It's RCMD CA11 23C (aka Richmond Main) this was shot with an early betamax camera by one of the switchman the day before they cutover of the No. 1 xbar machine, not a lot of live video of running crossbar machines around, but you can sure hear that old clicking/rattle racket on this one. Nothing sounds quite the same as a running crossbar machine.

NAB

 

[SYQUEST]

It looks like RCMDCA11 cutover to a 5ESS in March 1990. RCMDCA1123C was one of the last #1 XBAR offices in the Bay Area.


....JIM....

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

I was just a year off leaving high school in 1990.....

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[stsguy]

I used to stick toothpicks in the relays to troubleshoot problems in those beast. My My how far we have come!!!!

WORK SMART NOT HARD

 

[ironhorse17]

I like the machine gun rattle of the step office.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcFpaI1Y_SE

 

[alamtnman]

thats funny, I was just out of technical college and working In Michigan in the late 90's when they(AMERIBELL,I think) did a buyout/ force retirement to a guy who had been in the same crossbarr and step office since he was 18( he was 50 if I remember right, I was installing a small digital switch that gave them more ports till a DMS100/200 was due to be installed the next year. he had a new younger guy shadow him for two weeks before he left, on his last day he went around gathering toothpick's he had in various relays the new guy plus a couple of others could not figure out what was going on or how to fix it. Weeks later they hired him back as a consultant at almost twice the pay lol. they guy was amazing he could listen to the sounds of the clicking and just know when something was acting up and where to go look.

T.R.
RCDD

there may not be any stupid questions
but their is a bunch of inquizative idiots
(myself included at times)

 

[chris5225]

I love it. My dad was a co tek with C&P Telephone. I loved the stepper, x-bar, and even the 2b ess that provided dialton to (301) 777 and 759. Now they have a trash dms-100, that even a G3si Definity (sys75) could beat.

 

[BoskerTheArkite]

I worked on DMS 100's and DMX's (Nortel), AXE's (Ericsson) and 5ESS's (Lucent). I'll take the Nortel, for easy to work in day in and day out. The AXE wasn't quite as reliable but the documentation was great, so when you had a problem you could find it easy. 5ESS's documentation stunk but was probably the most reliable. DMS's were user friendly. The goood old days, I'd take a job any day working on any of them.

 

[chris5225]

The 5e is try-ed' and true = 100% reliable. Yea the dms is easy to administer, but the 5e is the best. Just like the G3 is hard to administer but is definately better than an 11e.