Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Demo!

[DavePEI]

Today is the day I decided to let people from CNET call in to try out the North American Strowger switching demo for the first time. This consists of a Cisco router which interfaces Asterisk with the demo rack, allowing them to operate it remotely to play around with its functions. Getting this ready for remote access through CNET has been the last couple of week's project. So, I put a message on CNET this morning giving the numbers in case people wanted to try calling it.

I had to share this with people. I had several people visiting the museum in person today as a call came into the demo from CNET.

One of the people visiting was standing with their back to the demo and practically leaning on it, as someone dialed in on VOIP, and the demo of course came to life chugging away. I practically had a new skylight punched through the roof as the visitor jumped!  

I explained what was happening, and how the call was made, and that was of great interest to the group present. You never know,  we might have made another telephone collector out of that visitor and the group visiting with him!

It was fun, and they enjoyed the impromptu demonstration of VOIP and the switch!

Dave

[AE_Collector]

Thought he had been cut down by machine gun fire at 10 rounds per second!

Terry

[DavePEI]

Thought he had been cut down by machine gun fire at 10 rounds per second!

Terry

I'm just lucky I didn't have to scrape his brains off the ceiling It left a good impression, but thankfully not in the ceiling.

I got about 22 calls into the system this afternoon and it got a good workout. It certainly was impressive for the demo, but in the future, I think I will forewarn the visitors to the museum that it might come to life while the are there!

In the past, I used to demonstrate it by dialing it on a butt set attached to it, and making one or the other phones connected to to ring. this is bound to be a bit more interesting!

I built the machine 6 years ago. I will post a photo of this, my secret weapon, later!

Photo below is the demo which was online today. Following that photo is a photo of the Asterisk Server and the Cisco Router that makes operation by VOIP possible.

I am also building a British Strowger switch from switches coming from the 1950 Summerside exchange. Read about it at:
http://www.islandregister.com/phones/demo2.html

Dave

[twocvbloke]

It's always funny to see the effects of sudden loud noises when people aren't expecting them...