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TELEPHONE SWITCHBOARD

A switchboard (also called a manual exchange) was a device used to connect a group of telephones manually to one another or to an outside connection, within and between telephone exchanges or private branch exchanges (PBXs). The user was typically known as an operator. Public manual exchanges disappeared during the last half of the 20th century, leaving a few PBX working in offices and hotels as manual branch exchanges.

The electromechanical automatic telephone exchange, invented by Almon Strowger in 1888, gradually replaced manual switchboards in central telephone exchanges. Manual switchboard phones have also for the most part been replaced by more sophisticated devices or even personal computers, which give the operator access to an abundance of switchboard features. In modern businesses, a PBX often has an attendant console for the operator, or an auto-attendant avoiding the operator entirely.

The switchboard quotes is usually designed to accommodate the operator to sit facing it. It has a high backpanel which consists of rows of female jacks, each jack designated and wired as a local switchboard extension of the switchboard (which serves an individual subscriber) or as an incoming or outgoing trunk line switchboard. The jack is also associated with a lamp.

On the table or desk area in front of the operator are columns of keys, lamps and cords. Each column consists of a front key and a rear key, a front lamp and a rear lamp, followed by a front cord and a rear cord, making up together a cord circuit. The front key is the "talk" key allowing the operator to speak with that particular cord pair. The rear key on older "manual" switchboards and PBXs is used to physically ring a telephone. On newer boards, the back key is used to collect (retrieve) money from coin telephones. Each of the switchboard keys has three positions: back, normal and forward. When a key is in the normal position an electrical talk path connects the front and rear cords. A key in the forward position (front key) connects the switchboard operator to the cord pair, and a key in the back position sends a ring signal out on the cord (on older manual exchanges). Each cord has a three-wire TRS connector: tip and ring for testing, ringing and voice switchboard ; and a sleeve wire for busy signals.