switchboards were around when you were doing that. I looked it up.the wiki said that its old. just as mom said. she should know her job of 33 years. she was good at it. she memorized towns streets as she had to look them up.in the 80s up till probably now a type of gps(then) was used when you looked up numbers. you could see the addy as well, names and so forth. its similar to I think the gis system.Did I say the 40's? I thought the OP was the 60's