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The early
BBC Control Rooms were
based on telephone exchanges and used pluggable cables with jack-plugs:
the one in the photo looks complicated enough but is actually a much
simplified one used for training at the BBC's Engineering Training
Department at Wood Norton, near Evesham: I took the photo when I was
there in the Spring of 1962.
The main problem, as it was
explained to us, with plug-and-cord Control Rooms is that it's all
right as long as one man can handle it all: but as soon as you need two
men, each has to spend half his time explaining to the other what he's
doing, so then you need three men, and each has to spend two-thirds of
his time.... and so on.
Plugs and cords were replaced by
uniselectors at the end of the 1950s - in fact when I joined in 1961
(in Bush House Control Room) the plug and cord Control Room in
Broadcasting House was still in operation, and you couldn't see the
bays containing the sockets for the cables - and later
by electronic switching.
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