AT&T Switching Cabinets?

[borg]

A few years back I purchased half a dozen large(refrigerator sized) AT&T cabinets at a University auction for $2. They are from the mid to late 1980's and have multiple rows of slide-in boards that connect to large back planes covered in gold pins. I stripped out the insides and scrapped the cabinets themselves for the steel. They had capacitors(?) the size of large coffee cans which I gave to a friend, and large drives in the bases. I know that the back plane gold pins are good, and that each board has female connections on the ends that probably are gold inside, but does anyone know about these boards themselves and if there are particularly valuable components that I should be sorting out? There is a couple hundred pounds of them, most loaded with various chips and components. Score or junk?

 

[oldgeek]

Should be decent material. Some pictures of your material would really help.

 

[ctgresale]

AT&T plus 1980's should be some good stuff. Things back then were made to last so that equal above average gold as far as telecom goes.

 

[element47.5]

Based upon my futzing around with telco equipment from my misspent youth...telco gear is usually very, very hard to adapt, hobbyist wise. Now as to whether the gear/backplanes would be valuable as replacement parts for someone looking to maintain an equipment room or similar....I can't see it. Just too old.

 

[glorycloud]

Interestingly, some of the "older" telecom products made by Lucent / Alcatel
are still in use and form the backbone of the internet for companies like
AT&T and Verizon. These devices are circa the mid 1990's and are still
in demand. 8)

 

[Pikachu2000]

The 5ESS line of switches has been in production since the Western Electric days, and are still in production now under the Alcatel-Lucent brand. Granted, they've evolved since their inception, but they still perform the same essential tasks.