As an aside, manual switchboards survived longer than you may think. My summer job in the 1980s was as a telephone operator on a manual switchboard. This was in

As an aside, manual switchboards survived longer than you may think. My summer job in the 1980s was as a telephone operator on a manual switchboard. This was in California. I don't think they completed the switch to digital until the 90s. And I did get the distinct impression that grandma had been a #cablegirl.