Anyone recognise this early 'email server' ?

[boombox]

Was on a tour at York's cold war bunker and the guide referred to this as an 'early email server'.

I can't make that make sense - anyone have any idea?

Thanks!!

[Jeremy M0RVB]

Perhaps a reference to messages being passed via teleprinters and such rather than email as today?

[Cobaltblue]

As networks were around certainly in the 80's using X25 (other protocols were also around) and email was certainly around and being used by government, university's and large companies it could well be parts of an Email server.

I think I (well that is the company) first signed me up to Compuserve around 1992 and it was around quite a while before that.

Cheers

Mike T

[Nuvistor]

Perhaps an early message switching system, email is one type but there are others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_switching

[Graham G3ZVT]

Backplane of a small telephone PABX perhaps?

The 7th image down
https://www.britainexpress.com/attra...ttraction=3567
shows a similar view was yours and is captioned "Telephone Exchange" (as is your jpg).

The text mentions there was originally a manual exchange, which implies to me that it was replaced with something more modern.

[G6Tanuki]

It does look like the backplane of some form of exchange, whether it was for voice phones, telex or electronic terminals/VDUs it's not possible to tell from the photos.

A high resolution shot of the text on the PCB would give us much more to go on.

[paulsherwin]

As said in #5, it's a 1980s branch telephone exchange in a fireproof rack. Nothing to do with email as such.

[Graham G3ZVT]

Moral of the story, museum guides, particularly volunteers, do a marvellous job, but they can't be expected to be experts in everything that the public asks.

Am I a rare breed that prefers to be told "Sorry, I don't know" than be given a random guess?

[g8jzyian]

The smaller box is a TEMPEST enclosure designed to shield electronics from "electromagnetic pulse".
I last saw one containing a Mitel SX200 telephone exchange.
Ian

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by g8jzyian

The smaller box is a TEMPEST enclosure designed to shield electronics from "electromagnetic pulse".
I last saw one containing a Mitel SX200 telephone exchange.
Ian

I wonder if that housed equipment that galvanically isolated the trunks and extensions?

I saw such a unit in a cabin on the site of a power station, It was obviously worth a lot more than the Omnicon 2828 I was there to swap out.

[Pellseinydd]

The taller nearer cabinet seems to have a number of 'light straw' coloured thick cables coming down into it.

But what is seem in museums insn't always what was there originally!

For instance the 'Battle of the Atalantic' museum in Liverpool is a recreation in the original basement location. It was 'recreated' in the mid-1990's. Interesting that the telephones aren't GPO ones! The 'manual telephone exchange' is a row of GPO 10+50 switchboards - you could never have more than two side by side otherwise it was impossible to connect an extension on one 'outer'board to the one on the otherside.

They also have installed some racks of a GPO UAX13 from near Leek saying it was used for calls incoming/outgoing to the public network to dial into direct to the extensions! Rather odd that I wrote an April Fool in the April 1993 about a 'PAX12' (Pneumatic Automatic eXchange No 12' based on a UAX12 that we had been to about by an old retired GPO/PO/BT engineer by the name of Reg Worts, hidden in Glen Bogie in the Higlands where it had been used to give Direct Dialling In to an early experimental radar site. Apparently relay contacts sparking of the Strowger kit caused interference with the radar. Hence Dollis Hill came up with the 'PAX12' to give the DDI

And the UAX13 in Liverpool followed the same pattern by giving 'Direct Dialling In' (alledgedly)!! Coincidence?

Interesting as the Defence Telecoms Network didn't have any automatic systems in that part of the World until late 1960's/early 1970. I was running a major hub of the network some twenty miles away during the1960s when I was a Technical Officer with the GPO for most of the 1960's to early 1970's.

Note the name of the old GPO pensioner who told us about this 'backwards' form of 'stroW geR' !! And it was never in Glen Bogie but the last UAX12 in the BT Network (Cabrach) was still working in Glen Bogie !

They also have a red painted Telephone RP3771 described as being the only surviving telephone 'used for secret access'! The telephone is actual one used on a M.A.T.E. (Multi Access Telephone Equipment) system in large repeater stations! See It certainly isn't the only survivor ! There were a couple at a THG swapmeet a couple of years ago.

So all you see insn't what it is claimed to be!

All good fun