Paladin Roaming

Working Antiques

We're getting re-arranged by ATT, managers retiring, people moving. The future of OCS is murky. OCS was created because our internal business has a lot of odd circuits still in use. This list-15 cabinet is a fine example. (picture a bit weird as I had to shoot it in pieces and splice together -- no room to step back.)

First, the cabinet itself --an AT&T data cabinet from the original American Telephone and Telegraph. Bottom to top the equipment consists of a SAM-64 data multiplexer, two shelves of 829's, a shelf of 202t's, another 829 shelf, more 202t's, and finally, at the top, a GDC rackmount.

The 829's adjust the strength of the analog signals to/from the 202t modems. The 202t's running at 1200bps, are connected to various central offices. Five of the GDC's are running 2400bps, more incoming data. Two of the GDC are running a blazing 9,600 bps. The whole thing has been running since the 1980's, monitoring several central offices, combining the data and sending it for recording/analysis.

Us old school technicians are all about to retire, we have no one following us around to learn what we know. Like WHERE this cabinet is. Once I'm retired I'm charging $5 a minute to listen to AT&Ts problems and tell how to fix. Assuming I remember.

Fun times ahead......

Posted by Paladin at May 7, 2008 11:44 PM