Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Moll
One thing that surprised me was the use of wedges to disconnect the lines from the manual exchange prior to using a second set to connect them to the automatic.
In footage I've previously seen of electromechanical exchanges being replaced by electronic ones, the disconnection was performed by rows of technicians simply snipping the cables prior to the wedges being pulled to cut in the new exchange. To me, this seems the obvious approach, rather than preceding the cut-over by laboriously connecting equipment whose only purpose will be to perform that same effect of disconnecting the existing lines - unless, of course, these wedges were an integral part of the manual exchange to begin with.
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In this case yes, but it's a good thing nothing was snipped when Cadbury replaced their electro-mechanical PABX3 with an STC Unimat 4080 back in the 80's. I had been trained to look after the new telephone system (essentially, an electronic matrix using reed delays to connect the cross-points). Cadbury had done such a good job educating the staff about all the wonderful new facilities available via their push-button DTMF phones, that on switchover day, the system kept crashing due to the number of people waiting for dial tone exceeding system parameters. The decision was made to switch back to the Old PABX 3 until more multi -frequency receivers were added to the Unimat. If I recall, at go-live 1800 extensions were connected just 8 MFR's. Another 8 were subsequently added and software tweaked resulting in a successful switchover. When the excitement died down, and traffic stats analysed, 4 MFR's were uninstalled leaving 12 in service with no detriment to the service, proving the planning for provision was correct but didn't take account of the initial enthusiasm of the users!