Jeff's quickie page of vintage and unusual

illuminated switches and front panels

Mysterious computer panel!

I salvaged this front panel and not much else, so I have no context for its use.
The rectangular bezel is a single line neon alphanumeric display: a Burroughs self-scan SSD0132-0039.
There was a full height 8" floppy drive in the left.
What was it?
My guess is that it was some communications controller due to the 8 modem-status LEDS over the thumbsheels
and the 8 "CIA ENABLE" switches (which probably have nothing to do with this CIA or this one).

The card from the right gives some clues:
A colorful front panel from a Radiation Incorporated tape drive

colorful ganged switches by Widmaier

I still adore really BIG hefty illuminated pushbuttons.
I never got to work on the big panels like NASA mission control but line printers and SOME computer parts were once large enough to deserve such switches!


I'm unsure from what this was salvaged, but it looks like something by Olivetti since their machines tended to be more mechanical than electro-mechanical