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Here we feature Nigel Pope a member of the Development Team... |
In 1974 Nigel Pope was typical of a university graduate starting work with the London Post Office Telecommunications. His first job was to join the team who were developing a new type of telephone exchange called TXE4. The production version of the exchange had only been running since 1971, so there were still many problems to smooth out and plenty of scope for enhancements.
Nigel recalls how the team pitted its collective minds against the early 'intelligent' switches...
"I spent 10 years working on TXE4 (RD) and TXE4A. I must have worked on every bit of the system at some time or other. Many years later, I had a phone call from a person working on exchange maintenance. He had seen my name on a diagram and wondered if I could help him clear a fault. The thing that worried me most was that despite a 10 year gap, I was still able to recall the relay set diagram to mind and I knew what the fault was!
When TXE4 first appeared in the network it was quite a culture shock for some maintenance staff who had to move from things which you oiled if they were causing problems to things which were thinking machines (sometimes with bad thoughts). TXE4 exchanges were prone to very obscure problems and faults. I travelled all over the country investigating and fixing these difficulties. I remember 3 freezing days in Aberdeen searching for a fault which took the whole exchange out of service and turned out to be a handful of missing resistors 10 feet off the ground.
On another site we spent days chasing strange problems which were all caused by a diode fitted the wrong way round. In Leeds I recall one of the team fixing a very obscure problem with a set of car jump leads. I also recall one member of the development team accidentally shorting the positive and negative busbars together with a spanner - with spectacular consequences!"
Procter House
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Nigel's family test out the black dial (modern) telephones |
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A typical Eighties office scene of Procter House in 1981 with Roger Richards and Phil Sangster. Not a PC in sight. Plenty of black mod. t's. Notice too the chairs with the mauve and green slip covers! |
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Christmas 1983, 4th floor Procter House with Phil Sangster and Graham White. |
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Julian Sua in Procter House. |
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Norman Ward hard at work. Notice the 10 way Key and Lamp Unit and the wooden in/out/pending trays. |
Page last updated 15th May 2012. Checked May 2021.
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