Editing PACX

{{Short description|Family of data switching products}}
{{More citations needed|date=March 2025}}
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[[Image:PACX_Panel.jpg|400px|thumb|right|A PACX Patch Panel]]

'''PACX''' (Private Automatic Computer eXchange) was a name given by [[Gandalf Technologies]] to their family of [[Network switch|data switching]] products.<ref name="y490">{{cite web | title=Gandalf PACX Family of Private Automatic Computer X |publisher=Columbia University in the City of New York | url=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/gandalf-pacx-iv.pdf | access-date=2025-03-25}}</ref><ref name="n216">{{cite book | last=Voyer | first=Roger | last2=Ryan | first2=Patti | title=The New Innovators | publisher=James Lorimer &amp; Company | date=1994-01-01 | isbn=978-1-55028-463-8 | page=187}}</ref>

==Architecture==
The PACX was a centralized switch that allowed serial connections from end users to be connected to any one of a number of computers, typically [[mainframe]]s. Users were equipped with small boxes with two thumbwheels on them, and by rolling the wheels to a given two-digit number they could select among the machines connected to the PACX. In typical setups, the PACX would be connected to [[computer terminal]]s or [[modem]]s.<ref name="x890">{{cite web | title=Gandalf SAM 201 modem · York University Computer Museum Canada | website=York University Computer Museum Canada | date=2025-03-25 | url=https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/items/show/343 | access-date=2025-03-25}}</ref> The switch box would be queried on connection for the user's selection, and then a direct connection would be made between the user and that machine. The system was not unlike the telephone network, and the name PACX was deliberately chosen to suggest a computer-side analog of the [[PABX]] market:False.

==Background==
The PACX, with its mainframe utility, was part of an era in which enterprise data services were seen to the province of an [[Office Controller]]. The Office Controller was envisaged as  a central switch which would interconnect and create all applications and make them available to users. [[PABX]] manufacturers of that era (the 1980s) created suites of data applications for the connection of users to mainframe applications. There were even magazine articles touting the victory of the [[PABX]] as an [[Office Controller]] over its LAN rivals. The PACX was a data PABX without the voice capability.

With the development of [[LAN]]s and cheap PCs with their attendant client/server applications, the [[Office Controller]] vision faded away. However the idea is not without merit. It is being re-established in new guises with the development of [[Session Initiation Protocol|SIP]] with [[Session Border Controller]]s and [[Service Oriented Architecture]]s. 

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/pacxbox.html Columbia University computer history page on PACX]

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[[Category:Networking hardware]]