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From: telecom@ucbvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.telecom
Subject: Re: Telecommunications History & Trivia
Message-ID: <8601310518.AA08257@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Date: Thu, 30-Jan-86 14:58:28 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8601310518.AA08257
Posted: Thu Jan 30 14:58:28 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Feb-86 02:26:10 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: nsc!freak (Curt Mayer)
Organization: The ARPA Internet
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Approved: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu

In article <8601300934.AA08968@ucbvax.berkeley.edu> kitty!larry@SEISMO.CSS.GOV writes:
>
>	Just today I found the real answer to a question which has piqued my
>curiosity for many years: What does the `E' and `M' stand for in the term
>``E&M signaling''?  No one - including people I have asked who work for the
>"Bell System" - has ever been able to answer other than "the letters have no
>meaning, but were arbitrary lead designations in a long-forgotten signaling
>system".
>	According to an AT&T Long Lines training manual from the early 1940's
>(which I recently rescued from the trash), the `E' stands for ``Ear'', and the
>`M' stands for ``Mouth''.  Think about it; it actually makes SENSE.

another good one is the original meaning of the tip and ring lines.
funny thing about >ring<, is that it has nothing to do with the ringer in the
phone. the story i got from a telecommunications guru was there once was
a little plug, looked a lot like a coax plug, and the middle (the tip) was
called tip, and the outside (the ring) was called ring.

kind of makes you wonder about terms like UNIX mean :->

curt