Historical Telecommunications
We're a loose collective of fairly technical people with an interest in historical telecommunications.
There is [so far] no legal entity behind this effort; it's just the collaboration of various individuals with a common goal. We spend our own money on acquiring historical artifacts and invest our spare time in documenting, repairing and researching them.
Most [large, public] telecommunications museums are rather disappointing from our view, as they are way too superficial and often happy with exhibiting some dead piece of hardware with a one-page description. What we are missing in many museums is equipment that is operational, as well as deeper knowledge about the context in which it was built, its internal operation, the major components it uses, the full user manuals, etc.
Furthermore, many communications museums focus on more early forms of electronic communications in the sense of analog telephony networks, electromechanical switching, telephones, telegraphs, etc. - while our main focus is more on the digital communications technology, roughly from the late 1960s through the late 1990s.
Goals / Activities
Our goals (and activities to reach those goals) are to
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assemble, digitize, archive and publish information about historical [digital] telecommunications technologies, including
data sheets, user manuals, service manuals, schematics, firmware updates, etc. for end-user, network-side transmission and switching equipment
historical journals, books, articles, brochures and magazines about the respective technologies
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collect, document, maintain, operate and exhibit historical [digital] telecommunications equipment
take high-resolution images of the equipment (both exterior and of all circuit boards) and publish them online
exhibit some of the equipment at certain events like vintage computing fairs/festivals or hacker conferences
develop, build and operate emulators for historical telecommunications networks to enable interested parties to operate their historical equipment against a simulated network over the internet
provide places online (such as chat, forum, mailing lists, video conferences) by which interested people can get in touch and collaborate within the goals of our project.
Areas of Interest
Areas of interest include (but are not limited to):
PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) transmission technology
CSPDNs (Circuit-Switched Public Data Networks) like German Datex-L
PSPDNs (Packet-Switched Public Data Networks) based on X.25 like German Datex-P
ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network)
Digital Telephone Switching (EWSD, System 12, System X, AXE, ...)
Frame Relay
DQDB
PDH (Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy)
SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy)
ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode)