A telecommunications museum in Seattle, with a working change from the Forties, reveals how telephones introduced us collectively – but in addition tore us aside, says Annalee Newitz
Technology
| Columnist
15 February 2023
I STOOD inside a warehouse, sandwiched between two floor-to-ceiling frames that regarded like historical bookshelves or maybe server racks from one other planet. Their surfaces have been alive with chattering steel switches hooked up to wires so previous their plastic sleeves had light to brown. It felt like I used to be trapped in a machine from a Charlie Chaplin film. But I used to be really within the guts of a Number Five Crossbar Switching System (5XB), developed at Bell Labs through the Forties to route hundreds of cellphone calls directly. The sounds I heard have been numbers cascading by means of electrical switches mounted on crossbars, establishing …
Source: www.newscientist.com