MANUAL SWITCHBOARD
Phone switchboard, 1975
A switchboard (also called
a manual exchange) was a device used to connect a group of telephones manually
to one another or to an outside connection, within and between telephone
exchanges or private branch exchanges (PBXs). The user
was typically known as an operator.
Public manual exchanges disappeared during the last half of the 20th century,
leaving a few PBXs working in offices and hotels as manual
branch exchanges.
MANUAL SWITCHBOARD AT AIR FORCE
v U.S. Air
Force operator works a switchboard in the underground command post
at Strategic Air Command headquarters, Offcuts Air Force
Base, Nebraska in 1967.
v The switchboard is
usually designed to accommodate the operator to sit facing it. It has a high back
panel which consists of rows of female jacks, each jack designated and wired as
a local extension of the switchboard (which serves an
individual subscriber) or as an incoming or outgoing trunk line. The jack
is also associated with a lamp.
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