[mod.telecom] Tip, ring & sleeve

embick%tetra@NOSC.ARPA (Edward M. Embick) (02/04/86)

>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. (ron@Brl)

I believe if you examine the standard "classic" phone plug you'll find it
has three contacts on it.  When I worked for Western Electric many many
years ago, much of the cabling we installed had several groups of 3 wires
in it.  These wires were referred to by the group designator and tip, ring,
or sleeve to identify the leads corresponding to the phone plug contacts.

                                    ______________________    
              ___  ___  ___________|                      |   
             /   ||   ||           |                      |   
             \___||___||___________|                      |   
             ^Tip  ^Ring  ^Sleeve  |______________________|   
                                                              
[Elmo- thanks to all who submitted on this. This msg had the best illustration]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ed Embick    (the more paths I make, the more paths they break! waaaaaaa....)
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