The one I ran was pretty basic, holes had numbers for dorm rooms. If a student wanted to call another room they called the operater (me when I was on duty)- we literally plugged a cord from room# to room# on the board and rang the room they were calling. Lights would go on while call was in progress and when they hung up the light went out and you unplugged that cord. If they wanted to make a long distance call we would plug their room into the outgoing or “outside line” and dial it for them or connect them to an operator for some calls. In the evenings it would get hectic and we could end up disconnecting the wrong cord or connecting people to the wrong room. They were not too happy but when we were busy that board looked like a wad of spaghetti with all the cords going every which direction.
I can only imagine what being an operator for a large system would have been like...
I did just that. I was a long distance operator from 1968 through 1970 in Southern California.
Remember the very expensive “person to person” collect calls?
You had to use three plugs for that call because you weren’t allowed for the caller to speak to anyone on the other end (the person they were calling).
So many times people used this to their advantage. They would call person to person to a John Wayne who would then not accept the charges. Trick. Whoever they called knew the person was safe for whatever reason without having to pay for the common collect call.
I also worked on mobile calls (super expensive). You had to break into the call every minute to remind the caller of the time they were using.
Also worked the teletype machine there. What a trip that was!
Ahh, Ma Bell!