
Turning a 1920s Switchboard into a Modern-Day Video Game - joubert
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a20292/turning-a-1920s-switchboard-into-a-modern-video-game/
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zokier
Bit more details on authors website:
[http://lazerwalker.com/hellooperator](http://lazerwalker.com/hellooperator)
and in Gamasutra interview:
[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/266470/AltCtrlGDC_Showcas...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/266470/AltCtrlGDC_Showcase_Mike_LazerWalkers_Hello_Operator.php)

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cnvogel
I really like this project for the aesthetics of the old switchboard. And the
guy's blog has many pretty pictures.

[http://blog.lazerwalker.com/switchboard/2016/02/21/switchboa...](http://blog.lazerwalker.com/switchboard/2016/02/21/switchboard-
part-1.html)

What I find funny, though, is his astonishment on the huge amount of wiring,
e.g. he writes...

“There’s a bit of a mystery here. Conceptually, you’d assume this is very
simple: it’s a switch with a neutral state and two other possible states. You
could easily represent this with only 3 pins. And yet there are two separate
physical mechanisms, one for each direction.”

What seems to be hard to fathom for people growing up with today's tech where
every single button we press is connected to a small microcontroller with more
computing power than what was available on the whole planet in 1920: there is
no second level of logic, except maybe one of two relays. And the only
reasonable way to build the required functionality, in these days, was to add
a few additional cogs, springs, beams, ... in each switch. And route 10
additional wires to it!

Having a whole rack of relays just to save on complexity to use simpler
switches would have been completely absurd then. Nowadays, in contrast, we
like to keep mechanical and wiring simple. And just complement it with
software to implement the details.

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Animats
Heres's a training film for this job.[1] The original article doesn't say much
about the gameplay, but the film shows what the job is like from an operator
perspective. Both the game machine and the training film are for an company's
in-house operator.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1t-K2c8Jbs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1t-K2c8Jbs)

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krisoft
The aesthetics of this project reminds me of the "Future Crew" game by NYC
Resistor[1]. In that game there were multiple (maybe 4?) stations, all vintage
looking interesting equipment. I remember a rotary phone, a piano, switcehs, a
bnc plug board and some broadcast equipment. All the stations were manned by a
participant, and they received orders which had to be carried out on one of
the stations, but not necessarily on their one. Gameplay looked like some
scifi where everyone is shouting things like: "Dial the president!" "Modulate
the medial truster!" One of happiest memories in my life.

1:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9F5Gvj2vv8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9F5Gvj2vv8)

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Qworg
It is a hardware version of Space Team!
[http://www.sleepingbeastgames.com/spaceteam/](http://www.sleepingbeastgames.com/spaceteam/)

------
orta
Laser-Walker also made WhatsApplebees :
[http://whatsapplebees.com](http://whatsapplebees.com) \- which is a pretty
great concept

