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From: ron@BRL.ARPA (Ron Natalie)
Newsgroups: mod.telecom
Subject: Re:  Telecommunications History & Trivia
Message-ID: <8602020351.AA26845@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Date: Fri, 31-Jan-86 10:00:25 EST
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Posted: Fri Jan 31 10:00:25 1986
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re
>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.

Give me a break.  Of course tip and ring have nothing to do with the ringer.
The standard "PHONE" plug has two conducters one on the tip and the other
on the sleeve or "ring."  The "ring" side is more descriptive of the jack
where the contact actually is a ring.

UNIX by the way is a PUN, but the letters are not an acronym for anything.

-Ron