My first email on this, new to me group.?? I’m John, a retired network architect from Siemens Healthineers with a minor obsession in telephone switching system.

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Back in the early 1980’s, I was a technical instructor for a third party computer maintenance company (Sorbus) when we got a contract with GTE to perform installation and trouble resolution services for their Telenet X.25 network.

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Most of the work expected by our technician would include installing modems or 56K DSU’s at the GTE hub sites that contained the TP4000 X.25 backbone network switch, installing PAD’s at GTE customer locations, and being smart hands ( the term certainly didn’t exist back then !!! ) when repairs on the TP4000’s were required.?? Now Sorbus had zero experience in telecommunication or networking so the class I taught had to go from punching down wires on 66 blocks, to what a modem was and naturally, we wanted to provide an overview of what X.25 and what Telenet were.? I went to McLean VA for I think 6 weeks to sit through two of their 2-week courses with 2 weeks of mostly one-on-one time with GTE’s inhouse instructors.? I bought a book on X.25 before the visit to VA and was fascinated.? The network bug bit me and bit me hard and I enjoyed decades working in networking.

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I don’t believe I ever used any X.25 network except for lab systems in those two classes in VA so I have zero practical or end-user experience but I’m confident I can get the networking part going pretty easily and figure out the rest while on the ride.

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I do have a question.

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Are there any devices that are always on on the x25.org network that I can make connections to?? If so, please provide numbers.

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Thanks!

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John