When I started working at Southwestern Bell back in 1979, they hired me into a job as a supervisor in Operator Services (consisted of Directory Assistance, Long Distance, and Cordboard). At that time, the cordboard was still operational but it was a technology being replaced. TSPS was new technology replacing it and it was being installed at the same time I was hired. Even after TSPS became the norm, the cordboard was still around for things like ship-to-shore, ground-to-air, calls to EMERGENCY services (911 didn't exist yet), and a few other call types. Since I had no prior experience with the cordboard, I didn't have direct responsibility for it or for any of the operators who still manned it. Seasoned supervisors who had worked that job themselves back when they were operators were the ones who took care of that. I just remembered being fascinated by it all.
