A room with a viewer
John Audley
Southwestern Bell Telephone Company
500 E. 8* Street, RM 752
Kansas City, Missouri 64106
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Its 1978, and Southwestern Bell is still a part of AT&T. Technology in the engineering
department is not quite on the rise at this time, the most sophisticated piece of equipment we own
is an electric adding machine. Our engineering drawings are done in pen and ink, or on a
typewriter. Our records are drafted in much the same way, on various sizes of media, drawn on a
drafting table, distributed to our end users via company mail, on paper. Archived on microfiche,
with the originals stored in large tubs that take up nearly as much room as the most sophisticated
computers of the day. AM/FM is a way to describe the hi-fi.
Tubs containing maps for 2 wire centers
Its now 1988, and we are an RBOC. Engineering had risen to the technological age, providing
one to two dumb terminals in each and every office, dial up of course. Our engineering drawings
were now done in pencil, or with a typewriter, on paper. Our records had progressed in some
areas to a mechanized plant location records system running on a Data General computer housed
in a 2000 square foot room. In other areas, we still were using large format paper drawn on large
drafting tables. Distribution in both cases was accomplished via company mail, on paper, and in
some instances on microfiche, in the form of aperture cards. Archives were on tape and
microfiche, with the originals still stored in the same large tubs as before, taking up nearly as
much room as the personnel required to draft the work. AM/FM was a concept to be dreamed of,
but still best used to describe the features of a used car.
Now its 1998, on the dawn of a new millennium. Engineers and their clerks are now equipped
with PC's on their desks, or UNIX workstations. After years of trying, we now have at our
disposal a mechanized drafting tool, using CAD and accessible across a wide area network. Our
records system has migrated from paper and pencil, in a variety of formats, to a single CAD
format, utilizing these same work stations, archived and stored on disk drives, searchable, easily
accessed. Pencils and electric erasers long since discarded, we now modify instead of erase and
replace. We the builders of the information super highway now had our work prints and records
traveling in the fast lane.
And distribution in 1988 . . . . . . With all of the tools at our disposal, with all the access to the
network, and with the sophistication and ease in which data is now passed, with all the
technology at our beck and call, the distribution of all of our efforts to our end users, to the people
who's jobs depend on accurate records, this distribution is now accomplished . . . . . . . . . .. via
company mail, on paper, and in some cases on microfiche, in the form of aperture cards. In 20
years we have indeed come a long way, but unless you were a part of engineering the appearance
was that we had not moved an inch.
