Word: switchboard
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...crank-telephone system in the U.S. Here is how it works. Somewhere in the modest stillness of Bryant Pond, someone rotates a crank, jangling the bell on the call box and generating enough current to cause a tab with the caller's number to click down on the switchboard in the pine-paneled back room of Elden Hathaway's house, also known as the Bryant Pond Telephone Co. One of the two operators, comfortably seated a few feet from an abandoned exercise cycle and at right angles to a gun rack, responds to the caller, voice to voice...
...little ring when signing off to notify the others that the line is clear. One sociable lady has made a habit of giving a little ding when she comes on, extending an invitation to her neighbors to tune in for lively listening. Eighty years ago, when the first switchboard occupied the back of Dudley's Store, impromptu musicales were broadcast along party lines, featuring a harmonica player named Davis...
Communal use of the phone tends to be less exuberant today. But the switchboard still serves as a referral center and hotline. If a caller wants the town carpenter, Elwood Wing, and Wing is away from home, the chances are fair that an operator will know where. When a fire is reported, operators ring up the members of the volunteer fire department. If a small child comes home from school to an empty house, the switchboard routinely plays babysitter, relaying Mother's messages...
...Queen displayed regal presence under pressure that would have impressed even her great-great-grandmother Victoria, the stoic object of seven assassination attempts over 42 years. As Elizabeth talked with Fagan, she managed to telephone the palace police switchboard twice, in a calm voice, to summon help. No one came immediately because the urgency of her situation was not realized An attendant who might have helped her was out walking the royal Corgis. She was finally saved when a maid entered the bedroom, took a stunned glance at the visitor and blurted, "Bloody hell, ma'am! What...
...department store's computer to talk back and forth with another machine in a distant supplier's warehouse. The two machines can even be different kinds of equipment. Said AT&T Chairman Charles Brown last week: "The new service will do for data transmission what the switchboard did for telephones...