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Northern California Wildfire Destroys American Telephony Museum
alphadogg writes: In this day of smartphones, cell towers and wearables, the American Museum of Telephony in the Mountain Ranch community of northern California preserved artifacts of a much different world of communications. But the museum, along with surrounding residences, burnt to the ground late last week during the raging Butte Fire and it's assumed that the collection is largely lost. The operator is vowing to rebuild.
"Your link could not be completed, please try again."
There are still plenty of museum pieces delivering "broadband internet" all over the USA.
If only the Phone Cops had been able to call in the Phone Firemen...
Do you know what burning copper smells like? DO YOU? Well, I do!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Seattle.
We are not going to be mature about this.
Skylar and me, we prefer the warm, rich sound that you can only get from a pre-1930's phone. But I guess the rest of you are used to settling for your lame digital phones.
[takes hit off bong]
And did I mention that we were into that band before they went mainstream and poseurs like you jumped on the bandwagon?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
http://jklmuseum.com/
raging Butte Fire
Hahaha haha. Hahahaha. Hah!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I see what you did there.
Clicking it gets you nowhere.
*laugh*
On the other hand, back when Bell owned literally the entire telephone network from the handset to the central office they designed their telephones to last for decades and to provide good call quality. Once the regulations changed and now anyone could manufacture/sell a telephone, the quality of non-Western-Electric phones dropped so far that there are many old landline phones that have terrible acoustic properties. I know because my parents were cheapskates and we had them.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Fortunately, the Telephone Museum, AKA The New England Museum of Telephony in Ellsworth, Maine hasn't burned down.
This museum has several *working* switches, including a #3 and a #5 crossbar switch, dozens of switchboards, and other cool stuff.
http://thetelephonemuseum.org/exhibits/
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
There was no ample warning; the radio talked about people that were literally pulled from their homes by the firemen attempting to fight the fire as the fireline approached residences. The people responsible for the museum were probably themselves too busy with their personal problems to take time to save the museum contents.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Unlike modern phones, some of those probably will just need the ashes blown out and a new wood case and will probably be fully functional again.
When I was young, we had one of those bakelite rotary phones. That was a hell of a tough phone. I'm pretty sure the handset would be considered a deadly weapon by today's standards. My sister and I laughed like crazy when we saw someone in a spy movie kill someone with the same model phone we had.
Their website shows very old party-line and hand-crank wooden phones. I doubt that there are many examples of these left as when they would have been replaced in-service they wouldn't have been worth anything.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The summary shows an underline, and my cursor changes to indicate that I can click on it. Yet, nothing happens when I click on it. Nice mangling of html there, slashdot. Is it supposed to be some sort of twisted play on the fact that the museum burned to the ground?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
How do you have a Telephony Museum and not have a Motorola RAZR flip phone?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Its odd, I was just reading the other day about the earliest known manuscript of Beowolf that was badly damaged in a fire in 1731. In this day and age when everyone is forced to pursue practical education and training, I would love to learn Old English (and several other really cool ancient languages like Hittite) just because its cool. Its a sign of a collapsing culture when education becomes more and more about "necessities" like vocational and job training and you can't even get a course in Sanskrit or Attic Greek.
Didn't Pac Bell send its old ESS switches down to sunny Mexico?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Their website shows very old party-line and hand-crank wooden phones. I doubt that there are many examples of these left as when they would have been replaced in-service they wouldn't have been worth anything.
There's probably lots of examples in barns still, but they're rotten, rusty, and moldy. People with space don't throw things away.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
On the other hand, back when Bell owned literally the entire telephone network from the handset to the central office they designed their telephones to last for decades and to provide good call quality. Once the regulations changed and now anyone could manufacture/sell a telephone, the quality of non-Western-Electric phones dropped so far that there are many old landline phones that have terrible acoustic properties. [...]
Well, really early telephones have terrible acoustic properties, from the simple fact that the microphone and speaker elements were quite primitive -- carbon elements (IIRC) on paper cones with Alnico (not ceramic or rare earth) magnets.
I think it may of been the 1950s or 60s, perhaps earlier, but Bell standardized on filtering audio to pass voice frequencies in the 300 to 3400 Hertz range. I believe this (or a 300-3k Hz simplification) became an ITU standard.
I agree the build quality of Western Electric (and Nortel) telephones, particularly business phones were impressive in how ruggedly build "office equipment" was built.
Here's an interesting look at audio quality of modern (digital) mobile phones, from IEEE Spectrum (free access), Why Mobile Voice Quality Still Stinks—and How to Fix It
According to all the references I can find, that flight happened in 1906, three years after Kitty Hawk. Many people who were unaware of the Wright Brothers (afraid of having their ideas stolen, the Wrights mostly avoided publicity) hailed him as the first man to fly, but the Wrights did manage it beforre him.
There's a very nice telephone museum (with lots of working switch gear) in Seattle. And another little one in the (very) rural town of Cle Elum, WA. And probably lots more scattered around the country. I suspect that these smalls town are where the old Strowgers, crossbars, and crank phones retire to. Then the townsfolk build museums around them when they finally die :-)
... "raging Butte Fire"... seriously? its called the raging butt fire? W T F
Stuff like this? http://www.shopgoodwill.com/au... They're really not that uncommon. Yes, one case is anecdotal but I knew exactly where to do a search to find one, and that's not the only example at Goodwill. eBay will get you more but at higher prices.Now, I would imagine they might have had specific makes & models that were more collectible than others, but the style of phone isn't in short supply.
Well, they built the National Corvette Museum in a place prone to sinkholes.
Conversely, the Salvador Dali Museum in St Pete was built to resist hurricanes. Time will tell on that one.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Wow. I have two Telephony Museums!
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
When Microsoft attempted to implement it I remember people pronouncing it "telePHONY". But I think they were limiting that pronounciation to Microsoft's implementation only.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
JKL MUSEUM OF TELEPHONY
Dedicated to preserving telephone history
oh. oops, ow. SNRK
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I was living, well, surviving, in St. Pete when the Dali museum opened. My roommate and I took one of rare days off to make 'greenies', and go to the museum. Neither of us had ever backed with pot before, and were really disappointed half an hour later when we felt almost nothing. We left for the museum anyway, and as we were walking into the building I stopped and said to Dan, "Holy crap, I just realized how fucked up I am!" He agreed that he was every bit as toasted. It was a very interesting four hours at the museum.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Of course they are, just like the idiots that have their house destroyed by flooding for the third or fourth time always rebuild in the same spot.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
You would think that people who live and work in areas that are prone to forest fires would have the sense to build using fireproof materials AND clear the trees and underbrush for at least a hundred yards from their structures.
But no.
In fact the really rare stuff was saved. They had hours to get stuff out of there before the fire reached it.