Early telephone service was handled through a manual switchboard at the Harris home.

Strangely, it was decided to continue with manual switchboards.

Instead, they took the highly unusual step of adding a dial and trunk lines to every manual switchboard position.

As the network grew, technology evolved and the manual switchboard was replaced with mechanical switches (this took decades).

Also the manual switchboard on the Kajaani station trackyard was dismantled.

The communications suite still contains a floor standing 1960's manual switchboard and there is evidence of a distribution frame that was mounted on the wall.

The company continued in operation and upgraded from a manual switchboard to a direct dial system in 1955.

The telephone system is still operated by its original old manual switchboard, which was manufactured by Siemens.

By 1904 over three million phones in the U.S. were connected by manual switchboard exchanges.

The first central office was located at Wilcomb's General Store, and that consisted of a small manual switchboard.

Collarenebri was among the last places in Australia to be converted from a manual switchboard to an automatic telephone exchange (in 1986).

There are also three fully working analogue telephone exchanges (one of them a mobile TXE2), a manual switchboard and early automatic systems.

The terms originate in reference to the telephone plugs used for connecting telephone calls in manual switchboards.

"1/4" tip/ring/sleeve (TRS) phone connectors were once widely used on manual switchboards and other telephone infrastructure.

Catalina's isolation also left the island as the last central office in the US Bell System to operate entirely using manual switchboard operators.

Established by his family in 1927, Camden Telephone began as a manual switchboard and grew to be Camden County's primary carrier.

To the left of the entrance were two telephone cabins and behind the counter a primitive manual switchboard, at the time the only direct telephone link with France.

An early form called Panel Call Indicator Pulsing used quaternary pulses to set up calls between a panel switch and a manual switchboard.

In areas with mostly machine switches and a few manual switchboards, Panel Call Indicator (PCI) signaling was used.

The electromechanical automatic telephone exchange, invented by Almon Strowger in 1888, gradually replaced manual switchboards in central telephone exchanges.

I never knew how important an automatic teller machine was till now, but first they had to invent the computer here, and a phone system where you didn't need no manual switchboard operators.

In 1943 when military calls had priority, a cross-country US call might take as long as 2 hours to request and schedule in cities that used manual switchboards for toll calls.

The size ranged from the small mom and pop companies run by a husband and wife team, with the husband doing the outside lines work and the wife operating a manual switchboard.

It also had an employee named Edna Nunn, who, despite being restricted to a wheelchair by childhood polio, operated the company's manual switchboard, collected all its bills and handled customer complaints.

Photo: GPO Frame Room Photo by Nick Catford The next room is the switchboard room with 5 key and lamp manual switchboards still in place.