An artsy picture of the Avaya/Lucent/AT&T 302B Attendant Console, made in the late 1980s, one of the few sets with button caps for the switchboard control of the System 75 and Definity PBX. Taken with a Nikon D3200 DSLR camera on Aperture priority, ISO 800.
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.
(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.