Quote:
Originally Posted by woodchips
Still got all my Crossbar training course notes, and many of the Strowger ones, back from my Plessey apprenticeship in the 70's.
Not even a Crossbar rack in a museum now, came and went inside 15 years.
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Crossbar lasted a little longer than 15 years in the public network. First was Broughton exchange near Preston, Lancs. in 1964 and the last was Droitwich going electronic in 1994. Interesting that Pre-2000 exchanges outlived Crossbar - the last pre-2000 being Cabrach UAX12 in the Cairngorms, Scotland in March 1995 - photo of it in its last day of service.
I have a working Crossbar system albeit a bit small ! An Ericsson ARD624 system.
Only 'real' crossbar I ever worked on was a PX2000 course at Beeston in mid-1970's then getting a 600 line one going once it had been installed. Three suites of racks! And now I've got a 500 line PABX that will fit in a small biscuit tin that I'm playing with! And my Raspberry PI system has over 250 working lines currently registered on it!
How things gave changed since my GPO apprenticeship days (when some exchanges were still 'winding the handle' to call the operator) !