Gadgetory

we are headed to the AT&T archive in New Jersey it's a large warehouse that holds decade's worth of material and it kind of seems there's one guy who is the archivist but other than that it's it seems really like kind of a storage facility I am George Kupchak I'm the manager of the 18 t archives and History Center at its Warren New Jersey location we have a repository that has over 10,000 artifacts probably over 10,000 films and videos close to a million or probably over a million photos that trace the history of AT&T over the years I thought of this place name as being the 18t Information Center and what does that come out attic I kind of thought of that as just kind of a fun way of representing what we have here it's amazing what I have I'm constantly surprised over here we have this vacuum tube which i think is fascinating this was part of the first television demonstration and it was from New York to Washington you can tell me what it's about I have no idea here Lord we can look at this what it says that simulates some functions of a living nerve cell this innovation led to having visual communications cool UNIX is the underlying language that the Internet is based on this was the beginning I mean this was probably a few years later but the internet was developed because of UNIX there is a romantic notion in that this is the nascent beginnings of communications and other cultural things that we take for granted I was a dancer at one point I also did theater join the company about 24 years ago and I started off as a paralegal through several promotions and whatever I wound up here in the archives and the more I work I come oh my gosh we did that here too oh my gosh and that's kind of get you more excited because then there's something new every day favorite artifacts well the telephone wire is one find that exciting I also have a Vitaphone I have the actual lab notebook of rattan the actual patent that Bell received from the Patent Office on March 7th 1876 it's considered the most valuable patent ever issued this is where he actually recorded the first telephone conversation on March 10 1876 and I will warn you right now I didn't put the scotch tape that you're gonna see right where my thumb is my right thumb it says March 10 1876 mr. Watson come here I want to history is history there's good history there's bad history don't want to let that go because they'll remind you whether it's a good thing or a bad thing of what that represents and hopefully if it's a bad thing you don't repeat it everything had to be have a beginning whether it was something from a hundred years ago and by step by step by step it became this huge invention or innovation that we have now if it wasn't for that first step you're not going to get any how many people have the opportunity to do something that is fun and enjoyable yeah it has its moments where you know you're busy and you're trying to get everything done but for the most part it's a nice gig