|
Posted by Ken Hoehn on April 10, 2008, 10:25 am
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
Hi Bill,
I'm curious, as perhaps others on the list may be, as to why there is *no*
occasional information on the status of Pat Townson?
Over the years on the list we heard *so* much about his personal
life...Maple Street, Elm Street, the cab service, meals on wheels, the bank,
the Wal-Mart, the local phone company, etc, that some of us felt we 'knew'
him. Although sometimes his 'concerns' over things business and politically
related sometimes entered the discussions to possible excess, it is indeed a
different place without him.
After he was most recently stricken, the list has returned to *nearly*
strictly business. It would be nice to hear from time to time what his
status might be. For instance, does he still read the list? Although I
certainly don't miss his politics, I do miss his occasional fact-filled
stories from the "telcom past".
An occasional status report or a transcribed message from him might be nice,
other than the message we all know will come some day in the future that
simply states he is no longer with us.
On another note, and perhaps more importantly, bravo on your efforts to keep
the list alive, relevant, and politically neutral. You are doing a fine
job!
Last, an extra bravo on your increasingly frequent remembrances from the
telecom past. You are more and venturing into such historic data, and I
applaud it. I think it should be encouraged here on the list, for we can
get CURRENT data almost anywhere. The stuff from the past will be lost if
not recorded, and the archives here are perfect place for doing so.
Regards,
Ken Hoehn
***** Moderator's Note *****
Ken,
Thanks for your compliments: one sentence like that is enough to keep
me going for a year!
Pat's phone has died, and Mike Sandman is working on the issue, but
he's out of touch for a few days. My thanks to Mike, who has been
funding Pat's cell phone.
Pat has told me that he rather not have details of his conditions
published, and I've avoided the issue. As I said last year, recovering
from a CVA is long, long process. There will come a time when Pat is
able to resume his stewardship, but I can't say when that will be.
I'm glad you enjoy my trips down memory lane: I had the good fortune
to be hired by Ma Bell just at the end of the electromechanical age,
and I got to work on Panel, #5 Crossbar, #1 ESS, and, finally the #5
ESS in addtion to N carrier, L carrier, and a whole lot of T
carrier. I also did a stint on the "Radio board", which included the
air-to-ground system, the paging equipment, the IMTS mobile phones,
and the ship-to-shore terminals as well: I even got to read the
weather reports on the air! I can tell you all you'd ever want to
know about Signalling System 7, and how I was present at the creation
of the Internet.
I wish I'd had more time to learn microwave, and less putting in 236
repeaters, and a lot more time to help younger techs learn the
craft: if I could, I'd put on a toolbelt and do it again. Such is life.
Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator
(Please put [Telecom] at the end of the subject line of your post, or
I may never see it. Thanks!)
|
 
| |
Posted by Al Gillis on April 11, 2008, 9:28 am
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
> Hi Bill,
[moderator snip]
> On another note, and perhaps more importantly, bravo on your efforts
> to keep the list alive, relevant, and politically neutral. You are
> doing a fine job!
> Last, an extra bravo on your increasingly frequent remembrances from
> the telecom past. You are more and venturing into such historic
> data, and I applaud it. I think it should be encouraged here on the
> list, for we can get CURRENT data almost anywhere. The stuff from
> the past will be lost if not recorded, and the archives here are
> perfect place for doing so.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ken Hoehn
>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> Ken,
>
> Thanks for your compliments: one sentence like that is enough to keep
> me going for a year!
>
[moderator snip]
> I'm glad you enjoy my trips down memory lane: I had the good fortune
> to be hired by Ma Bell just at the end of the electromechanical age,
> and I got to work on Panel, #5 Crossbar, #1 ESS, and, finally the #5
> ESS in addtion to N carrier, L carrier, and a whole lot of T
> carrier. I also did a stint on the "Radio board", which included the
> air-to-ground system, the paging equipment, the IMTS mobile phones,
> and the ship-to-shore terminals as well: I even got to read the
> weather reports on the air! I can tell you all you'd ever want to
> know about Signalling System 7, and how I was present at the creation
> of the Internet.
>
> I wish I'd had more time to learn microwave, and less putting in 236
> repeaters, and a lot more time to help younger techs learn the
> craft: if I could, I'd put on a toolbelt and do it again. Such is life.
>
> Bill Horne
> Temporary Moderator
>
Bill, I certainly agree with Ken... Your work here at C.D.T. is just great.
And, like Ken, I enjoy and learn from your snapshots into "Telephoning from
the Past"! Keep those stories coming!
Al
***** Moderator's Note *****
Al,
Thank you. It's nice to hear your feedback!
Someday, I'll tell the story of how _not_ to troubleshoot a T-1 span ...
Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator
(Please put [Telecom] at the end of the subject line of your post, or
I may never see it. Thanks!)
|
|
Posted by on April 11, 2008, 7:37 pm
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options > ***** Moderator's Note *****
> Thanks for your compliments: one sentence like that is enough to keep
> me going for a year!
I too want to express my appreciation for the job you're doing. I
know it's a lot of work to filter through the junk.
> I'm glad you enjoy my trips down memory lane . . .
I appreciate the historical feedback from people. But talking about
the old Bell System days is more than mere nostalgia. The old Bell
System, being a regulated monopoly, was very service oriented, which
translated into high reliability and ease of use for customers. It
wasn't perfect, but came close. We can learn a lot from their efforts
to maintain service quality. We can also learn much from their
mistakes, too.
In addition, the Bell System was an integrated _system_. Every part--
from the transmitter element in a plain phone to complex microwave
repeaters--was designed to work in harmony with all the other parts as
a system. This was a lot harder to accomplish than we think. On the
one hand, the Bell System was constantly making improvements, but on
the other had to maintain backward compatibility. The designers of
the Panel Switch or SxS never dreamed of modulated data transmissions
going over dial up lines, but that came about and had to be
accomodated. A review of old Bell Laboratories Records and Technical
Journals reveals the incredible variation in applied ressearch. They
worried about lead poisoning and developed a portable quick test kit
for a recycling plant. Once again, there's a lot we can learn from
this.
As a telephone user, I am frustrated by modern turret and PBX systems
that often leave me "high and dry", a situation that was deemed
intolerable by Bell System designers. Manuals of operation for PBX
switchboards always included a chapter of "Tips for Better Telephone
Service", and those tips are forgotten today. For instance, in the
old days if an extension was busy or didn't answer the operator was
supposed to come back on the line and offer try another extension; now
they forget about you and you get cut off. Operators were supposed to
know how to reach people in an organization or a substitute. Today
you get a voice mail that is filled up so you can't leave a message or
talk to an alterative.
I do appreciate when people post items about service quality, not just
technical details and PBX programming.
(I must admit I find it troubling when a supposed expert has to come
to a public forum to ask for advice on how to install a PBX he sold.)
|
|
Posted by Jim Haynes on April 12, 2008, 3:09 pm
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options >I appreciate the historical feedback from people. But talking about
>the old Bell System days is more than mere nostalgia. The old Bell
>System, being a regulated monopoly, was very service oriented, which
>translated into high reliability and ease of use for customers.
An old book which is fairly easy to obtain (www.abebooks.com, for example)
is "The Bell Telephone System" by Arthur W. Page, 1941. This is
admittedly partisan, but the author sets forth just the idea expressed
above, and attempts to answer all the attacks that were made on the
Bell System as it was then.
|
|
Posted by T on April 13, 2008, 12:14 am
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
> >I appreciate the historical feedback from people. But talking about
> >the old Bell System days is more than mere nostalgia. The old Bell
> >System, being a regulated monopoly, was very service oriented, which
> >translated into high reliability and ease of use for customers.
>
> An old book which is fairly easy to obtain (www.abebooks.com, for example)
> is "The Bell Telephone System" by Arthur W. Page, 1941. This is
> admittedly partisan, but the author sets forth just the idea expressed
> above, and attempts to answer all the attacks that were made on the
> Bell System as it was then.
>
>
Not only that, a lot of the Sci/Tech books from Bell are there too. Oh,
some additions are getting made to my library!
|
| Similar Threads | Posted | | Switching History (was How's Pat?) [Telecom] | April 14, 2008, 12:52 pm |
| Re: [telecom] How's Pat? [Telecom] (now Old Bell System) | April 13, 2008, 8:22 pm |
| Re: [telecom] How's Pat? [Telecom] | April 13, 2008, 8:23 pm |
| [telecom] Need some guidance on telecom easements [Telecom] | August 16, 2008, 9:08 pm |
| Re: [telecom] Radio Shark and Laff-At-It (was Calling Features and LATAs) [Telecom] | July 10, 2008, 11:28 pm |
| Re: [telecom] Road Runner pulls USENET access [TELECOM] | June 27, 2008, 5:50 pm |
| Re: [telecom] Road Runner pulls USENET access [TELECOM] | June 27, 2008, 5:55 pm |
| [Telecom] Telecom stuff--"Three Days of the Condor" movie | January 9, 2008, 10:17 pm |
| [telecom] Manual and Magneto Phone Systems [Telecom] | August 16, 2008, 9:05 pm |
| Telecom rollouts raise ire over utility boxes [telecom] | August 23, 2008, 3:59 pm |
|
|
![How's Pat? [Telecom]](/images/header.jpg)
NewsGroups 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML site map