Hi Evan! Started my career in The Bell System as a long distance operator. The sounds are all so familiar and reminds me of the fun I had in the earlier years of my career. As always, thank you.
I just finished watching Curious Marc's video featuring an operational crossbar 5 and ESS. So I had to come back and listen to more of your tapes . These new videos were a pleased suppose. YT notification system is broken.
Ahhh, the flashbacks!! There were such fun times! I had plenty of tapes and, sadly I threw them all away shortly after getting married and moving out of state. I grew up in Manhattan and moved to NJ as a young teen. Telephones and cb radio were fantastic hobbies and my thirst for knowledge and adventure arose from those days.
There's no way, You need to have bigger space to put that machine in, I've called into a working Crossbar switches many times in 2022. They sound wonderful! :)
There's a museum in Seattle and another in Maine, which really DO have a working #5 crossbar and much more! Here's the part 1 of Martin (who volunteers at the museum) explaining #5 crossbar to me ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TGBBbukhoNg.html
NEC made a cabinet version of the crossbar switch that was sold as PBX in business. There used to be one at Great America Theme park in Santa Clara,Ca. Like a miniature #5 it had a distinctive dial tone sound.