- Title: Hold the phone: Seattle museum showcases retro communication devices
- Date: 11th July 2023
- Summary: SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES (MAY 30, 2023)(REUTERS) VARIOUS OF VINTAGE BROADCAST TELEVISION EQUIPMENT INSIDE CONNECTIONS MUSEUM CONNECTIONS MUSEUM BOARD PRESIDENT PETER AMSTEIN TALKING WITH VOLUNTEERS (SOUNDBITE)(English) CONNECTIONS MUSEUM BOARD PRESIDENT, PETER AMSTEIN, SAYING: "I think there are two things that make this museum special and unique. One of them is that it is an interactive experience. There are many other telephone museums. Most of them are just things on static display, you don't actually get to play with them, and try them out, and here everything is turned on and powered up. Almost nothing is behind glass. It's this very interactive, different kind of experience." VINTAGE PHONE SWITCHBOARD VINTAGE PHONES SITTING ON A SHELF (SOUNDBITE)(English) CONNECTIONS MUSEUM BOARD PRESIDENT, PETER AMSTEIN, SAYING: "The other thing I think that's special about our museum is that it is a living, growing, developing museum. There are also other phone museums that were put together by the same sorts of people that created this museum, and then they passed on. And now it's just it's done right at that museum is what it is, and it's never going to be added to again. Our museum continues to collect new artifacts, continues to add new equipment to our displays. We very actively search the country and the world for interesting objects that we think would be good additions. And sometimes we send our volunteers on cross-country road trips to go get those things. So, it's a growing developing place." VOLUNTEER DEMONSTRATING VINTAGE PHONE SWITCHBOARD TO VISITORS VISITOR USING PHONE DURING DEMONSTRATION (SOUNDBITE)(English) CONNECTIONS MUSEUM BOARD PRESIDENT, PETER AMSTEIN, SAYING: "Most of the volunteers who join us today have jobs in the tech industry where they spend their days sitting at a keyboard typing stuff. And it's all sort of very virtual and intangible. And I think one of the deeply gratifying things about volunteering here is that this older technology is very physical and tangible. You can see parts moving, you can see the lights flashing." VOLUNTEER TYPING ON VINTAGE WIRE SERVICE TYPERWRITER VOLUNTEER SARAH AUTUMN TINKERING WITH WIRE SERVICE MACHINE WITH PETER AMSTEIN VARIOUS OF VINTAGE WIRE SERVICE MACHINE DEMONSTRATION VOLUNTEER SARAH AUTUMN STANDING WITHIN WORLD'S LAST EXISTING PANEL SWITCH SYSTEM WAITING FOR AN ALARM TO SOUND, SAYING: "Five seconds. Four, three, two, now. (Alarm bell rings) When this, when this part of the machine encounters trouble, it rings a bell and then lights some lamps to tell me what it's upset about." VARIOUS PANEL SWITCH SYSTEM (SOUNDBITE)(English) CONNECTIONS MUSEUM VOLUNTEER SARAH AUTUMN SITTING WITHIN PANEL SWITCH SYSTEM, SAYING: "So, here in the Connections Museum, this switch is the only one left in the entire world. So at one point there were hundreds of them, several installed in every major city in the U.S., but all of them were scrapped. And this is the only one that was saved. And it still works." VOLUNTEER SARAH AUTUMN WORKING ON PANEL SWITCH SYSTEM VARIOUS DETAILS OF PANEL SWITCH SYSTEM (SOUNDBITE)(English) CONNECTIONS MUSEUM VOLUNTEER SARAH AUTUMN SITTING WITHIN PANEL SWITCH SYSTEM, SAYING: "At first with this machine, there was a huge learning curve, and it wasn't for the faint of heart because there wasn't really a way in, you know, where if you know how to ride a bicycle, you could probably figure out how to ride a motorcycle because there's a similarity between the two things, right? But it was really tough to find similarities in this machine with anything else I'd previously worked on. And when I touched it, more often than not, I just got a shock." SARAH AUTUMN SPEAKING WITH VISITORS DURING A TOUR SHOT OF SARAH AUTUMN SPEAKING WITH VISITORS DURING A TOUR, PAN TO VISITORS TOOLS USED TO WORK ON PANEL SWITCH SYSTEM
- Embargoed: 25th July 2023 10:50
- Keywords: CONNECTIONS MUSEUM TELECOMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT VINTAGE TELEPHONES
- Location: SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES
- City: SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES
- Country: US
- Topics: North America,Human Interest/Brights/Odd News,Society/Social Issues
- Reuters ID: LVA001340828062023RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Inside a nondescript building in Seattle lies two telecommunication bookends: on one end, one of the city's largest network providers providers; on the other, a museum that transports visitors back to a time of rotary telephones and operator-managed party lines.
The Connections Museum boasts a collection of more than 250 historical artifacts including five large telephone switching systems, broadcast television equipment, multiple teleprinters that were once used to deliver news from wire agencies like Reuters, and more than 200 analog telephones of all types.
"There are many other telephone museums," says Peter Amstein, a former Microsoft employee turned tour guide, volunteer, and board president of the Telecommunications History Group, who keeps phones ringing at the museum. "Most of them are just things on static display, you don't actually get to play with them, and try them out. Here everything is turned on and powered up. Almost nothing is behind glass. It's this very interactive, different kind of experience."
Amstein is one of 23 active volunteers at the museum, all of whom work on different projects from large to small and help provide tours once a week when the museum is open to the public for a few hours.
"Most of the volunteers who join us today have jobs in the tech industry where they spend their days sitting at a keyboard typing stuff, and it's all sort of very virtual and intangible." Amstein explains about the committed crew and their penchant for working on historical items. "I think one of the deeply gratifying things about volunteering here is that this older technology is very physical and tangible. You can see parts moving, you can see the lights flashing."
In a far corner of the museum rests the world's only operational panel switch system, found in another nearby telecommunications building before it was taken to the scrapyard and lost forever.
Sarah Autumn, an in-house educator at a company that makes networking equipment, spent five years painstakingly reassembling the panel switch, wire by wire. The system itself spans multiple corridors of equipment racks with moving parts simulating what may have been on operator's movements along them one hundred years before.
"At first with this machine, there was a huge learning curve, and it wasn't for the faint of heart, says Sarah Autumn, of her prized project and the difficulty of making it operational once again. "It was really tough to find similarities in this machine with anything else I'd previously worked on. And when I touched it, more often than not, I just got a shock."
Autumn told Reuters the reason she continues to come back to the Connections Museum is the sense of community among other "nerds" and the solace she finds after a tough day by simply getting in her zone and working on the panel switch.
The museum is open Sundays from 10am - 3pm.
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