Ugliest Operator Consoles, part six

You thought Avaya would be off the hook (non pun intended) right?

Nope! It would defeat the purpose of being the equal opportunity offender.

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Dimension Attendant Console, circa mid 1970s. NOT MY IMAGE.

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.

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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.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Not My Photo – Same Crappy Set a with new Look! (and more BLFs since the System 85/Definity G2 could support to over 30,000 extensions on a single node!)

 

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”

Ugliest Operator Consoles, part four

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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.

 

Ugliest Operator Consoles, part three

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(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.