I’m the last guy to critique the look and feel of operator consoles. I’m not the guy who says “lookie… at this sleek and modern design of a set that doesn’t do anything significant” crap
This set (again found off an eBay listing) is an operator console for ROLM based PBX systems. Despite the last patch of their flagship 9100 systems probably of two decades; some sets are still in use.
This Toshiba PBX Console was made for another system they sold before they focused solely on the Strata. From my research, in the midst of their business, they had the key system known as the Strata and a PBX system that could hold more than 300 stations. This console was incompatible with the smaller Strata
I have to say, the AT&T 301 and 302 would win on any console UI or looks any day!
Kids, want to set up a PBX like it was the 1970s? Get your thumbs ready by playing some Atari and Pac Man, before heading to your assignment of adding a couple thousand stations and hundreds of trunks. Such finger exercises are similar to Pac Man!
While this “console” doesn’t take calls in a business, it does however require usage to make changes. This was Western Electric’s MAAP – The Maintenance And Administration Panel, better known by it’s acronym. Eighteen buttons plus your dialpad. While such practices are common in smaller systems at an assigned extension and port; this was the practice done on larger systems “back in the day”.
It wasn’t till the end of the 1980s, AT&T sold one of their own UNIX PCs to allow MAAP to be done similar to the terminal sessions found in the System 75. Data was entered similar to a System 75, but the app would take that data then spit it out through the serial connection the similar way it would’ve been done in the MAAP, a series of commands of pressing buttons here and there plus the numbers and/or letters on the keypad.
This was effectively out of date by the mid 1990s with the introduction of the Definity ECS (G3r V5) that merged the two systems. In it’s early days of the Definity G2, through the limited documentation AT&T released, it’s preferred administrative method was the UNIX box despite support for the MAAP.
MAAPs were not uncommon. Other vendors had used a special set to do system administration. In today’s smaller systems, non VOIP multi line phones at specific wired extensions can act as administrative terminals. PBXs however require dummy terminal, Web or app based administration.
Sadly, where I live, Avaya or Nortel isn’t “alive and well” unlike another site I follow. Nortel has disappeared in my state in public and private entities in lieu of Cisco years ago and Avaya Red has slowly disappeared too.
On a Christmas Eve tradition before I was born, my family would order pizza out at the local Papa Ginos, that is local chain with more than one hundred stores around the Greater Boston region, basically in four of the six New England states. It’s reputation is fresh quality pizza of with quality ingredients. Over the years Papa’s has had exclusive marketing deals with the local Boston teams such as the Red Sox and currently the Patriots.
The chain has used AT&T products going back to the days of Western Electric. This location I had frequented growing up had used one of those 10 line 1A2 wall mount Key telephones till a cutover around 2001 to a Partner ACS system. The only ComKey I’ve ever seen in production was another store nearby, and that had cutover to a Partner circa 2001 or 02.
I’ve been to mostly the New Hampshire stores, and D’Angelo the sub shop, is a sister brand to Papa Ginos. I don’t recall them using any phone systems, the one nearby me, that I took a few years back with an Avaya van uses POTS phones.
But today, just the next block away from that same D’Angelo, I noticed this phone. Nope, its not a 9600 Avaya IP or 9500 DCP set. No, worse a Polycom VVX 310 set. (I haven’t been here for a while, some days I normally walk here because it’s not that far away from my home.)
You thought Avaya would be off the hook (non pun intended) right?
Nope! It would defeat the purpose of being the equal opportunity offender.
This console was made in the early 1970s for the Bell System’s Dimension PBX (and smaller versions most likely for the Horizon system.) The console was a weird design consisting of a shoebox form factor.
To the right of the set had only eight characters alpha numeric LED display. The console is filled with many indicators (the design at the time.) The console was very primitive for it’s time. No call appearances for overflowed calls. The buttons above the dialpad did act as such but they were referred (IIRC) as loopback lines.
Even stranger, as with many consoles at the time, would require a straight up, direct line from a special console port on the PBX to the location of the console. What was it’s connector? You guessed it, a 25 pair Amphenol plug!
While the Dimension console did in fact have BLFs with buttons, it was a seperate option and was located on the top, picture shown above.
In the mid to late 1980s, AT&T remade the set – took away the wood grain decal, mainstream of office telephones of the time, and made it jet black, to match the Merlin-like sets of the time as this console went into System 85 PBX line. If research confirms my out of experience of that PBX, the only attendant console, had to be one that was hard wired to the PBX. Unless with some reversed engineering, and some creativity, one could theoretically take AT&T’s ISDN console that was identical to the 302s, put it as an ISDN set and do it that way.
The Definity G3r succeeded the System 85/Definity G2 (aka a band-aid Dimension) in the mid 1990s. Release 5 was intended to be the combination of the 2 PBX systems, after all it’s core roots dates back to when the Bell System marketed the thing. Of the many fundamental changes, what retained were desksets, carriers, etc.; what went away was some of the user interfaces, the notorious MAAP to program the system, and the hardwired attendant console. A 302 could replace it via a 2 wire (2 pair if you wanted power coming out of the wall’s) voice drop and be affiliated in a DCP line over a dedicated attendant port. The only set that would continue with button caps at this point in the late 1980s lead into the 302 set to have similar clear plastic overlay for designation keys.
It’s strange the console given its “electronic” ability, could very well be mistaken for being some electrical box like an ol Call Director or 10 to 30 line set.
It’s one of those “I so just don’t want to remember this set”
Of the worst attendant consoles to exist on this planet, the vintage Northern Telecom would win hands down.
Joe the UCX Guy had featured this console and used it during his days while he attended Purdue.
These switchboards or consoles were tied behind a central office switch such as DMS series or the carrier grade PBX – the SL100 (which I believe is different than the original SL1.)
In short, central office services are much less feature rich and thats why it has little functionality.
But why in the hell it’s so honking big is beyond me. It’s one of the many consoles of those days that required a 25 pair Amphenol cable to function.
This one is a little more tolerable, it looks like an ACD console, but it’s an operator console. Fujitsu marketed an F9600 PBX in the 1990s, some customers took advantage of their offerings. (The City of Nashua, NH is one of the local users I can name off.)
The BLF is rather interesting because it’s something you expect from a Japanese made Key Telephone System. The DESI-d buttons looks like an equivalent to the Hundreds Group Select.
What’s also common with many of these consoles is how “dumb” they are. The time of day is essentially a local desktop clock on a phone. Some of the consoles have those little buttons similar to your car to change the time. So they couldn’t pull time of day information from the PBX itself.
(I guess I stay up late looking at my own screengrabs)
The Japanese are no angels ether. I guess since digital PBX systems were derivatives of the design of mainframes, the consoles that used to manage mainframes, were not based on CRT in the beginning. Heck even the first PC – the Altair, was filled of complicated LEDs and switches.
This console most likely is used for the NEAX PBX system (the equivalent to the M1, the G3, or SX systems.)
In the late 90s, early 2000s, they too got their act together, and had a sleek console with the user in mind.
Again not my pictures, was taken from an eBay listing.
I won’t say this console is “ugly” in the looks department per se, but I believe the user interface is beyond “ugly”. From knowing a little of the old school Mitels (the pure TDM flavors), it had complex features, but accessing them were over simplified. From my third hand research, I mean is that you had like up to 10 programmable features, then the softkeys, then the arrows to move the cursor around on screen.
They never sold special BLF modules for the console. The same PKM-12, 24 or 48 modules used for the SuperSet digital sets – would be plugged into this console. The ones originally used for the SuperSets kinda had consistency but if you had the 5448 or something of that generation it would look like a hodge podge type of deskset if you still are using these types of consoles, because even the most recent IP-based console is completely a carbon copy of the digital cousin.
The handset retainer is misleading, because (correct me if I am wrong) there is no switchhook, and functions like other consoles, you must initiate by pressing a line key.
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As we are going into the spirit of the Christmas season, I thought to spoof “Ugly Christmas Sweaters” to do a similar thing to operator consoles.
Today’s will be 
This is a Mitel operator console. Before they were seriously electronic, the set was bulky, I believe metallic or heavy duty and the Busy Lamp Field would literally mean a field of lamps with no button access.
They stopped making this around the late 1980s, but wouldn’t be surprised to see these installed in SX 50, SX 200 or SX 200 Superswitches.
PICTURE IS NOT MY OWN. It was snatched by an eBay listing