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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?
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.
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!
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?)
Scene: 19th century, A Telephone rings
[Voice on phone]: "Hi, is this 7?"
[Guy]: "No, this is 3!"
because pre-1982 SBC history was AT&T history. Kinda funny how the student became the master
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.
... 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. ;)
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.
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.
Edison didn't believe that DC was safer, he knew the situation. In addition to being safer, AC doesn't require a transformer on every block for distribution like DC does. Edison knew that AC was better, but Edison didn't own the patent on it. The rivalry between Edison and Tesla was the real cause of this--Tesla invented and marketed AC, Edison patented a DC distribution system. Edison tried to shape public opinion because he knew that his sytem was both less safe and more expensive. Luckily his tactics didn't work.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!