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The AT&T Archives Post-SBC Merger?
mrfantasy writes "An article in the Newark, NJ Star-Ledge discusses the possible fate of the AT&T Archives, which is a huge, irreplaceable historical repository of most of the advancements of late 19th and 20th century communications. Corporate archives are often casualties of companies when they are subsumed by a parent organization. The archives include such things as long-distance telephone directories from the mid-1890s, containing every long distance subscriber in the country, including Alexander Graham Bell himself; and a microphone from Warren Harding's 1921 inauguration, the first heard by the crowd thanks to AT&T amplification equipment."
It's the 21st century.
We have eBay now.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Alexander Graham Bell's Phone Number: 1
Firstly, it's the "Star Ledger", not the "Star Ledge"; secondly, it's AT&T, not AT&aT. What's with the editors these days?
Save the whale, save Jane Fonda from irate whales, save coupons, save lives at the beach, save old phone books....nah.....
http://www.busyweather.com/
It's actually the Star-Ledger.
Love,
A New Jerseyan
You can be sure some Private Collectors would probably buy up alot of this stuff if they auctioned it off.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
I'd love for those fsckers to go try sell health insurance to a bunch of dead people.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Although possible, I find it unlikely that SBC would not value AT&T's heritage as much as, and as part of, its own. It is a Bell operating company after all, with many veteran execs from the Bell system of yore. It may even use the AT&T name after the merger.
This archive by itself would be a great museum based upon the things in it that the article mentioned. Of course, someone would have to organize the collection and hire staff to maintain the buildings, but it's a shame to see our history not being put to use. Some of the stories and innovations here could serve as inspiration to our kids and current researchers much the same way that the moon landing and Hubble telescope did for some of our generation. If they setup a building with the highlights and charged a modest price for admission, it would be far better than letting these memories go to waste.
Save humanity!
Seriously, why would anyone think this stuff is in danger? As if SBC wouldn't see it as an asset, part of their "goodwill" portfolio.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
.......please!!!!!!
When I worked for AT&T, one could go to Murray Hill and it would be an educational experience. No "business requirement" needed. It was like a university setting where one went to learn from the masters.
Now... the masters are gone. The company as it was is gone. Who cares?
*fires up wget -r*
Sounds like the perfect archive of "stuff" you might expect to see in the smithsonian? /shrug
Why should AT&T lose its archives because it's merging with SBC? Before "SBC" became a referent-less corporate initialism, it used to stand for "Southwestern Bell Corporation", a company formed by carving it out of AT&T due to anti-trust litigation. They had always been the same company, just taking a 22-year trial separation.
(Oh, and how much public time and money was spent splitting up AT&T only to let the pieces gradually merge back together, like the re-heated T1000?)
I'm sure Brewster would love it.
Scene: 19th century, A Telephone rings
[Voice on phone]: "Hi, is this 7?"
[Guy]: "No, this is 3!"
"Now... the masters are gone. The company as it was is gone. Who cares?"
Nothing is forever.
because pre-1982 SBC history was AT&T history. Kinda funny how the student became the master
"Someday the museum(s) could grow to be the largest museum complex in the world. They could function as "an establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge.""
So why do all the presidents have their own museum?
who is this? For God's Sake, who is this? Hello?
You misunderstand. Reread the summary. They actually have a catalog containing the corpses of all the long distance subscribers. As such, all the rules involving cemeteries should apply here. Who needs TFA when I have Slashdot to boil it down to the basic ideas?
My first summer job in high school was at the Warren AT&T archives. I wound up staying on for 4 years
The archive is a treasure trove of hardware for sure, but there are an incredible number of technical papers and photographs as well; Bell and Watson's lab notes while developing the phone, research notes on the development of the transistor and the Lab's UNIX flavor and more. David Korn's research notes on Ksh development or Arno Penzias' reports of his accidential verification of cosmic background radiation might be of interest to some /. collectors should the whole lot end up on the auction block.
The place is crazy. It's not just the History of AT&T, it's the Great Library of information technology. Hopefully SBC will see it that way too. Last I heard, they had completed indexing and uncrating over 9 miles of paper case files (researcher's project notes) from the 1890's to 1980's. The number of talented scientists who spent their lives at the Labs helping create the IT infrastructure you're soaking in is astounding. As a research lab supported by a monopoly utility, they had unprecedented resources to explore all kinds of ideas. It's all there. Neat stuff.
One of my favourite pieces was a 1960's prototype for an operator's uniform. Very Star Trek:TOS. Ohura's uniform in gold lamee. Some Suit thought it might be a good idea to have all the operators (almost entirely female at the time) wear uniforms, and this is what they came up with.
But I'm waxing philosophic. SBC will save the tech documents at least, to protect the intellectual property they're buying with the hard assets. As for the old phone booths, recording equipment and videophone prototypes, maybe they'll end up in private collections or museums. Either way, hopefully more people will get to see and appreciate them.
There's no story here. The reporter has no reason to think this will happen. Nobody with either company has said the archives will be thrown out. AT&T's former archivist thinks SBC is good about keeping archives. SBC's spokesman says they keep archives. Some professor somewhere says, with no evidence at all, that they'll throw it all away, and that gives a bored reporter a hook to hang a bullshit story on.
Calm down, they'll keep it or give it to a museum.
"Corporate archives are often casualties of companies when they are subsumed by a parent organization."
What? Is the submitter suggesting that SBC intends on setting fire to the historical archives of AT&T(presumably before killing the family members of the AT&T CEO lest they challenge SBC for the throne in the future)? Come on! These aren't the Vandals invading the Roman Empire.
"Why wouldn't SBC value these archives?" Why would anyone burn the Library of Alexandria? Expect the worst, hope for the best.
SCO will own them
... deep, deep, inside, is a copy of the infamous ( mythical ? ) issue of the Bell Technical Journal that described the operator-assited long distance dialing mechanism, and how easily it could be defeated. It gave rise to the "phone phreaks" and "blue box" devices in the 1960's, and rest is hacker history.
Phone books are one way to supplement geneology. One of my great-great grandfathers had a home phone in the 1890s.
I'm often amazed by how much history is so much BS, especially the stuff you could supposedly hang your hat on. I mean, every grade school kid KNOWS Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone just like every kid KNOWS Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. I consider myself fairly cynical about things in general, but stuff like this makes me feel like a doe-eyed innocent setting eyes on the world for the first time. ;)
What history? They dropped the name. BFD. Southern New England Telephone co. was basically the first RBOC, but so what?
Oh yeah, being "first" is a rich and voluminous history; and all that history was destroyed when SBC dropped the SNET from its name locally. [/sarcasm]
I have an uncontrollable urge to rub my genitals across your left cheek.
In the case of AT&T here, were talking physical history (e.g. original antique phone books). Company names are (at best) just tradition.
I'm trying desperately to find where in my post where I said "When SBC bought SNET it destroyed history forever and is far larger a loss than what little will be lost in this trivial AT&T merger."
Funny, I can't seem to find it.
Gosh, perhaps it's possible that I was just saying that I doubted SBC would care based on similar (but not equal -- that was your interpretation) happenings.
And I can assure you it was more than just a simple name change when they bought SNET.
BytesTemplar.com
come out of your AC, andrew
James Murray was also the man who first introduced and interested Alexander Graham Bell in electricity.
Doesn't that violate their privacy policy in some way?
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
I did a contract at SBC, and it was a mess. They would not cover the costs of some basic but necessary office supplies. The place was full of H1B's rented from small fly-by-night shops who they knew they could pressure into long hours because the H1B's couldn't sue without deportation risks, and the management was chaotic and jittery. It was Big Company Hell at its worse. It was a souless place.
The stuff will go into dumpsters and the land fill. A bunch of greedier heartless cooperate bastards has rarely been seen.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
The worst barbarian sacking was a mild inconvenience when compared to the dreaded looting and pillaging of the Acquisitors of Corporate Cost Accounting.
On a quiet, mid-week, moonlit night, an old pickup truck with a large gas tank in the back, but no headlights, quietly pulls up and stops next to an old building. Two men get out and eagerly operate the gas tanks' fuel pump. Just prior to a hasty departure, a glass bottle filled with an inflammable liquid and fitted with a cloth rag in the top, is set ablaze, and tossed through a window, breaking the window and the bottle when it hits the floor. The entire building is consumed. The insurance company evenutally lists the damages to the building at approximately $1,000,000 and to it's contents --all old and no longer functional-- at just over $10,000. Over at SBC, the office of the CFO is still and dark except for moonlight streaming in from a half shaded window. The light falls on a sheet of paper titled 'assets', and highlights a pencil line that has already been drawn through the address of the building. History is lost forever 'due to unfortunate circumstances'. However, 'the events' according to the president at the next fiscal review meeting, 'are probably for the best'.
It's an obvious phishing attempt.
I heard once this guy got arrested for trying to buy a taco at taco bell with a $2 bill.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Don't forget this is the re-merging of two peices of the same company, Ma Bell. I'm sure SBC has just as much intrest in keeping those archives around.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
AC is now known to be significantly safer than DC (for comparable current/voltage, obviously) ; Edison BELIEVED AC was more dangerous.
I've met this guy, my friend has been out to his private phone museum in California. It looks like he has lots of old relics, he's getting alot of them up and running too.
When I met him, he had me call a certain number at his museum with my cell phone, and some kind of device picked up and just gave me a speaker in one of the rooms. Then he called another number with his phone and I could here a mechanical line switcher in the room going to work. Was interesting.
What a great application for capital punishment! Destroy historical treasures, get fried. That might give the corporate assholes some pause.
Look at the bright side: there's always seppuku.
The article is largely true. I've experienced enough corporate mergers and takeovers to have taken note of the speed of which all references to the "loser" disappear. It reminds me of the practice in the Soviet Union of retouching photographs and amending history books when someone important fell out of favor and was "disappeared".
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
http://djvuzone.org/djvu/att/archives/index.html.
Personal favorite: the invention of the transistor.
Since SBC comes from AT&T's Bell System and there are some achievements that SBC would like to present as their legacy too, SBC will not destroy those archives. Consider that SBC may even assume AT&T's corporate name, in which case that preservation would make even more sense. Yes it's PR, but as SBC and Verizon get bigger and bigger and become a duopoly in communications, having SBC present that legacy as its own is of some business value.
In this 'throwaway' society, who cares about historical artifacts.
Very few of us..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As soon as there are only one or a few dominant commercial services left, the dangers become obvious (only when it is already too late) if these start to hide part of the messages (e.g. eMail addresses, controversial topics etc.), switch to fee-based or geographically restricted access, or simply discontinue service.
This may have severe implications not just for historians' access to material a few decades down the road, but also even today, as already shown by some recent cases, e.g. for demonstrating prior art against bogus patents.
I'm sure they'll dust off half of it and put it to work in my exchange. SBC hates thier rural customers.
Freakin' MBAs and Everything is Business....
Thirty-five years ago, I worked at the Franklin Institute Research Labs in Philly. The Instritute (a science museum) had a library with things back to its founding in the 1820s.
The library was open to members (I'd been a member since I was about 12 - didn't cost much.)
The Labs got themselves a "library research" department. They would get subscriptions to scientific journals it needed for its contracts...then drop them when the contracts ended.
Then they got complete control of the library. They SOLD OFF a major chunk of those historical books and journals. Gone from the public view. Do I expect less from this merger?
mark
From TFA:
"SBC has demonstrated a commitment to the history of telecommunications," says Sheldon Hochheiser, AT&T's historian until a downsizing last year.
Gosh, and perhaps I was just pointing out that the "history" in question WRT AT&T is (in large part) actual stuff. It's not a reasonable comparison to say "look what they did to SNET", because I seriously doubt SNET (being just another RBOC) was sitting on a huge pile of historical artifacts that SBC tossed in a dumpster.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
There is a lot of relevant material about the work on Bell Labs, and a lot of available software (GraphViz, etc).
SNET wasn't just another RBOC, it was the first commercial telephone exchange in the world. And after buying them, SBC has happily described itself as having 125 years of experience. Seems disingenuous to me. Having worked at SNET for a couple summers while it was getting eaten, I can attest that things went to shit, and the CT state attorney general seemed to agree:
Suffice it to say, the last summer I was there, one of my coworkers greeted my return by asking, "Why the fuck did you come back?"
Bear in mind also that while SBC may have once stood for "Southwestern Bell Corporation," the company has changed its official name to reflect that it serves many parts of the nation... by making "SBC" an explicitly meaningless acronym. It doesn't stand for anything anymore. Seems appropriate given the corporate culture; I can only hope they keep AT&T's name.
As for AT&T's historical archives, I certainly hope SBC won't throw them in the dumpster, but the history will at least be cannibalized to meet SBC's purposes.