User talk:Jim.henderson/archive 1

Moving pages

There should be a "move" button at the top of the page, near the edit and history buttons. Use that if you think Reed relay is incorrectly named. (The article says they're the same thing... Are they?) Happy editing. Grandmasterka 05:14, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Whew! Great stuff, and thanks! So far, the worst thing I did was to fail to notice my own Talk Page for a week and a half.

Anyway, yes I figured out how to do a move, moved the badly written "Reed relay" article to Wire spring relay which is what it described, and rewrote and expanded it. Then wrote a brand new Reed relay article by expanding on the correct description already in the excellent but general Relay article, adding a link to and material from the Reed switch article and adding some material from my own decades of experience with these devices. It could all be referenced from the old books and journal articles in my closets but I'm limiting myself to things I know cold and sure from memory rather than go into great detail about coincident current selection and other topics I know more from reading than from doing.

Also I revised some articles on telephone signaling and related topics, put them into appropriate categories, made links to and from orphan articles, and created an article where the link had been red. Plans for the future include creating articles on switching system designs that are merely mentioned in other articles, and creating a Category for them.

Every time I run into an article with an irrelevant link, be it in electronics or Levantine history or whatever, I look for the relevant article and correct the link. Come to think of it I have to do that with the DTMF article which links to the irrelevant article on mathematical Matrix. At least, irrelevant as used in this context. What makes me hesitant is, the paragraph must be rewritten a bit. Where the old article is bad, as was the case for Reed relay and Marker (telecommunications) I am bold, but where it is good I am more hesitant.

Today I'll study Wikitext markup language a little more, after bicycling a dozen miles to fix someone's television in Brooklyn, and bicycling back through Queens. Mustn't miss a good day to be out. Tomorrow is to be rainy and more studious. Jim.henderson 14:30, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Class 4 switch

Jim, I'd like to start an article on Class 4 switches. Any ideas? Luis F. Gonzalez 04:42, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

As you see from my page, Luis, I'm pretty new to this game. Didn't even know it was possible to make up a new article within a user page and later transfer it into the encyclopedia. I don't plan to learn how to add the bumper stickers, or whatever they are called, that summarize my opinions on fur or guns or other matters I'm not competent to write articles about.

As with many people, my opinions are strongest where my knowledge is weakest, so here goes: Bad idea on grounds of breaking up information into too small bits. The existing Class 5 switch article is also too narrow (besides being badly named). Better to rename that article and add more stuff to cover the whole hierarchy of Class 1 thru 5 and why they were made, and like that there. (And I think there was a Class 8 for local tandems).

It's a bigger job than adding another good but narrow article, but we'll end up with better organized coverage and better understanding, of the old class structure and network. The Class 5 article is an embryo I found and added to slightly, but it really needs to be reoriented, renamed, and given a broader view rather than four companions for four other classes and three CT classes for IDDD.

On the other hand, if you do it well, then a cluster of articles can do the job well even if I don't like structuring it as a cluster rather than a unified article. Details can wreck or save any broad policy no matter how wise or foolish.

"Telephone Exchange" has the opposite problem, but it's past bedtime now for me and I'll write that critique in its own talk page after sleep and other important business. Ta-ta and cheerio and whatever friendly Briticism we can think of.

Oh. Come to think of it, this whole discussion belongs in the Class 5 article's talk page, not your or my personal page. Nighty night and I hope the discussion goes away about how primitive or advanced is the USA compared to the world. Jim.henderson 08:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I won't contribute to USA v world, but its a fight people like to have especially in these troubled times. Comparing apples to oranges as they say. Luis F. Gonzalez 19:54, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

PSTN Heirarchy

I drew up something. Lemme know what you think. Luis F. Gonzalez 17:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

AT&T PSTN Office Classification Hierarchy

Well, it's slightly mixed up, with a few errors including "Primary Centers" on two different levels, but it's a start. Years ago I saw an official and similar chart of last resort trunk groups. Where, I don't remember. Perhaps you should post it even with the errors in "Office Classification" where nobody will see it except people who may be able to help, prior to merging that article into PSTN. Jim.henderson 19:24, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Updated the graphic. Luis F. Gonzalez 22:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The descriptions of office hierarchy added in November are incorrect - although this needs to be taken in context, as it's entirely historical, and hasn't applied for about 20 years.

There were 10 Class One offices in the US (White Plains NY, Wayne PA, Pittsburgh PA, Norway IL [which wasn't a real place, but a rural crossroads a distance away from Chicago - case hardened office built in a cornfield to withstand nuclear attack], Rockdale GA, St Louis MO, Dallas TX, Denver CO, Sacramento CA, San Bernardino CA) plus two in Canada (Montréal PQ, Regina SK), about 50-75 Class 2 offices (depending on year), 150-175 class 3, etc. The hierarchy was one of the first things you learned when you went to work for AT&T Long Lines. It mostly had to do with route selection, and other than "final routes" there often wasn't a lot of difference between class one and two offices - most class 2's connected to each other, so relatively little traffic went all the way up and down the ladder. But there were clearly five active levels of office in the Long Lines (and GTE) toll system.

The international gateways (historically, Boston/Springfield MA, New York/White Plains NY, Miami/Jacksonville FL, and Oakland CA) weren't part of the switching class hierarchy. They dated back to the era when operators had to manually complete all calls, and specialized call handling and billing procedures were required. As the years went on, they lost their special places in the system, and most of the class one offices acquired direct international connections, at least to more common points, with the traditional gateways being reserved for manually handled problem calls and countries. Much of that change had to do with the introduction of TSPS software that would allow the local operator to properly handle and bill international calls.

Much of this is easily verifiable from telco documents on the web, and from electrical/electronic engineering texts that include switching network history. See sites such as

http://www.dmine.com/phworld/switch/4xb.htm http://www.ittc.ku.edu/~jpgs/courses/nets/lecture-hist-arch-display.pdf

or any number of engineering textbooks or older edition of AT&T's Notes on the Network publication

5XB

Was this the predecessor to the 5ESS? It may need an article stub. If you have references I'll start it. Luis F. Gonzalez 22:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Pretty much. I suspect the 5ESS number was chosen partly to express that idea. Number 5 Crossbar was the main urban Class 5 office in the 1960s and 70s. Originally (1948) it was for rural use. I covered it somewhat in the Centrex and Marker (telecommunications) articles, but could fill a few more pages just from memory. 5XB was also used for class 4/5 in rural areas and for TWX and Picturephone but I only worked on 5XB Centrex, POTS and a little on Picturephone.

Look for external links about 1XB and Panel, and you'll probably find something about 4XB, 5XB and XBT as well. Whatever you find on Web, put in the links and I'll fill in with information not on the referenced sites. I did that somewhat with Panel Switch, having found no sites that mentioned, for example, Stuck Senders. Jim.henderson 23:15, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a more research. Thanks for the info. Luis F. Gonzalez 01:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Invitation to Wikipedia:WikiProject Telecommunications

I have noticed that you have made good contributions to several Telecommunications related articles, and would like to invite your to WikiProject Telecommunications. Mange01 04:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Welcome and thanks

Welcome to Wikipedia, Jim. Thanks for identifying the equipment name for the card sorter used for DDD. A lot of this info was tipped to me by a gentleman named Mark Cuccia of New Orleans (now Lafayette), who's deeply interested in things telephone. Caution - he'll talk your ear off! He's collected all kinds of industry documents and is very interested in the history of numbering and such. Mark oughta be on Wikipedia but he isn't. GBC 23:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know much about 4XB or numbering plans, but ought to write an article about 5XB or maybe a small book. Anyway, looking at your user page, I saw the bumper sticker (or whatever it's called) for using a rotary dial. Since I used the rotary dial on my 500 type phone this afternoon, it seemed like the first sticker that belongs on my personal page. Still won't bother finding out whether there are stickers for my favorite foods, movies, flowers or other trivia.

Jim.henderson 00:59, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Telephone lawsuits

It is amusing to look at events in 1876-1881 through the eyes of Western Union. Their consultants Thomas Edison and Elisha Gray were busy inventing acoustic telegraph designs to send multiple messages over one wire (with ground return). Gray wanted to use the acoustic telegraph to transmit speech, but when he mentioned this to his financial backer Dr. Samuel S. White, White just glared at him. Likewise Bell wanted to transmit "vocal sounds" on a telegraph line, but when he mentioned this to his financial backer Gardiner Hubbard, Hubbard scolded him for neglecting his main project the acoustic telegraph. From Western Union's POV and Hubbard's POV, the idea of using telegraph wires for telephone conversations was madness. The last thing they wanted was for customers to monopolize existing telegraph lines with lengthy conversations. They wanted just the opposite, to send as many messages as possible on each telegraph line. Sending multiple voice conversations on each line was beyond the state of the art.

So when Gray's caveat was suspended because it interfered with Bell's application, Dr. White refused to support legal costs of Gray's caveat and Gray's lawyer William Baldwin advised abandoning the caveat because he said Bell had invented the telephone months earlier. When the Bell Telephone Co. attracted thousands of customers, Western Union reconsidered because they forsaw that the telephone would eliminate the labor costs of messengers who carried telegrams to businesses and carried new messages from the businesses to the telegraph offices. The telephone would not use telegraph lines, but rather would use new local lines between each business and the telegraph offices. Edison then invented his carbon microphone which he sold to Western Union which then used it in their new telephone company the American Speaking Telephone Co. The carbon mic in Western Union's telephones very nearly put the Bell company into bankrupty in early 1879, because Bell transmitters were voice powered and the voice sounds were so weak that customers had to shout into the transmitters. But Bell stockholders included lawyers with deep pockets, so they sued Western Union and their telephone subsidiary through Western Union's agent Peter Dowd. This "Dowd suit" was filed Dec 1, 1877 and Western Union paid for Dowd's legal expenses. They settled with Bell 2 years later on November 10, 1879 and that included the sale to Bell of Edison's telephone patents owned by Western Union. The federal court issued a consent decree April 4, 1881.

Elisha Gray filed a patent application for his water-transmitter telephone in late 1877. Patent applications of Elisha Gray and 5 other inventors claimed what Bell had claimed. The court decided on July 21, 1883 that Bell's patent had priority over Gray's application, so Gray lost his rights because of "his failure to take any action amounting to completion until after others had demonstrated the utility of the invention." This Gray interference case was a different case than the Dowd suit. Greensburger 03:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey, this is great stuff; thanks; I didn't know it was so complex. It should be stuffed into the standard Wikipedia stuffed shirt for the Western Union article, or the biographies of the protagonists or maybe a separate little article for the Bell/Gray patent cases. I guess the WU article would be the best place; that's a much smaller one than the AT&T or Telephone, isn't it? Lemme sign this bit and take a look. ... Yeah, that's the place, unless one of the exising articles about the Gray vs Bell lawsuits or Invention of the telephone or one of the others would be a better venue. WU is one of the founders of the industry, and ought to be credited (and blamed) appropriately.

Jim.henderson 07:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Autovon

Oof, I gotta work on that article. It says almost nothing about the switching systems that ran Autovon, whose official documentation I studied carefully in the early 1970s. It had a fancy 4 wire 5XB switch with Polygrid routing complexities far beyond what the article already says. Jim.henderson 07:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Interlingua

Hi. Appreciate your more-balanced edit about Interlingua -- it is indeed only "remarkably easy" if you speak a European language. I have no plans to spend much time on the Interlingua article -- so few speakers, I think my time can be better spent elsewhere. Achieving neutrality on such pages seems impossible -- the "devoted" (as with Esperanto, Ido, etc.) don't seem capable of allowing people to be exposed to the reality of the limited utility and minuscule impact of artificial languages. I found Interlingua interesting to study, but I find most speakers' near-religious fervency about it baffling. Thanks for being sane. --Championdante 13:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Yeah, they're trying to save the world, after all. Great ambitions tend to breed or attract fanatics, who tend in turn to schisma. SUV, Segway, Segregated cycle facilities and even Street can also attract this kind of sincerity, though these cases are not exacerbated by decline and desperation. I like to recall Oscar Wilde's comment to the effect that "All bad poetry comes from sincere feelings" and apply it to carefully laid schemes to improve the world. Anyway it's slightly surprising my little improvement survived the American overnight and the European Saturday. If it lasts another ten or twelve hours I'll edit out a few of my superfluous words and consider inserting a generalization of all constructs based on Romance.

Y'know, what the fanatics ought to do is take their rivalries into writing Wikipedia articles on unrelated topics. There's some apparently good information about one of my favorite topics, Telephone switching, in Wiki German. Much better than the version in Spanish, which I read pretty well, and somewhat better than the French which I can pick my way through. I could read an Esperanto or Interlingua translation of the German. But then, having understood it, I'd also incorporate the material into existing articles in English and then where do the devotees see a profit for their cause? Hmm, the French article also has some good bits. I'd better look at it more closely and see what should be incorporated.

Jim.henderson 15:15, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Class 4 telephone switch

Please take a look at the Class 4 telephone switch stub I started and correct as needed. Luis F. Gonzalez 01:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

3BT

Have you heard of this? It rings a an AT&T bell in my head especially when you mentioned XBT. Luis F. Gonzalez 01:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Never heard of 3BT. The Class 4 article looks good at a first glance, except that combined 4/5 is rare in big cities. I don't think the New York area has even one, for example. Also the distinction between Class 3 having and not having operators must surely be obsolete. At my guess, anyway. Anyway, gotta run and see if I can get back in less than ten hours. Busy evening and night. Jim.henderson 05:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Possibly it designates a particular tandem shop, rather than a design. I did some work in Boro Tandem 3 and 4 in the early 1970s, which was abbreviated as BT, BT3, BT4 or BT3/4 in various contexts. Midtown Tandem on the other side of Manhattan was MT5 and MT6, while one of the principal outgoing Class 4 offices was Bronx Tandem 8, abbreviated as BXT and as NY8. All these were the XBT design. Jim.henderson 15:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

New articles

During the week I did a little editing on Class 4, and created anew 1XB switch, 5XB switch and 1ESS switch. They all need more work, both internally and in links, and for the latter two there's plenty more material in my own memories. I also found my BSTJ issue about 2ESS and might find time this month to summarize its intro into an article. It's one of the switches on which I have no training or experience whatever. Jim.henderson 15:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Telephone Switch template

How's this:

X570 22:43, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow! I'm shocked. I'm delighted. I'm pleased. I'm uncertain. Anyway, I'll go on in the Template's own talk page at Template_talk:Telephone_Switches to discuss it further. Jim.henderson 02:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Forgot

Forgot to get back to you--no, I'm not that switchman. Gene Nygaard 15:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Concerning your edit to Segway PT

You gave as a reason for editing : "(Deleted improbable claim of people running 40 Km per hour)". And you deleted the comment "Segway PTs are driven by electric motors at up to 10.6 m/s (25.5 mph/40 km/h) (4.5 m/s in the small discontinued p-Series).". Your deletion makes no sense, nowhere does it say people can run 40 Km in one hour. It simply say a segway (small electrical vehicle) can achieve this speed. Most healthy young people can almost run at 40km/h over a short distance, and this article is not even about running, but about a vehicle. Anyone can cycle at 40km/h so why would this segway not be capable of it? It is not "improbable" and even if it were you should check sources first. --Jackaranga 20:22, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Ferries

I've started writing articles about some of the ferries: Category:Ferries in New York City. After I finish the initial round, I'll add information from after 1845 from the Brooklyn Eagle archives. --NE2 22:41, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Ikz

I have added a "{{prod}}" template to the article Ikz, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but I don't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and I've explained why in the deletion notice (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. Whpq 16:21, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Phony article Question

Hello. I have used wikipedia before, but I have a question. What happens if someone creates an inpropriate article on Wikipedia? Like something completely false, silly or spamming? 86.145.106.10 16:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

See WP:DELETE for how to get rid of evil useless articles. Jim.henderson 22:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Breezy

Concerning your edits about Breezy Point, are you one of the Henderson's from Jamaika Walk?

Nope. One of the Hendersons from Wisconsin, or a few decades ago from Nassau County, or in more recent decades from Manhattan. I have only visited Breezy Point a dozen times in thirty years, always by bicycle, sometimes with friends who lived in Neponsit and elsewhere on the Rockaway peninsula. Nice place, even though my own tastes run more to the inner city. The doctor says the collarbone that got broken when a car hit me on Lexington Avenue will be strong in a couple more months, and I expect to get back on the bike and visit again. Jim.henderson 17:50, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Merging FTTC into FTTN

Hi Jim. Consensus had not been reached on whether to merge FTTC into FTTN. (see Talk:Fiber_to_the_x#Restructuring proposal). For this reason, for now I will restore these articles back to their pre-merged state. (However, this may be quite temporary, because your proposal to put both FTTC and FTTN into the FTTX article seems like a good one.) If you would like to make an argument in support of merging FTTC into the FTTN article, please express your views under Talk:Fiber_to_the_x#Restructuring proposal.

As a seperate issue, when you have time I would be interested to hear your point of view about merging Fiber in the loop into Fiber to the x. (See Talk:Fiber_to_the_x#Merge "Fiber in the Loop"?).

If you have any comments specifically for me, please make them on this page so that the thread can stay together.

Thank you,

Riick 18:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)