We all take Ethernet and its ubiquitous RJ-45 connector for granted these days. But Ethernet didn’t start with twisted pair cable. [Mark] and [Ben] at The Serial Port YouTube channel are taking a deep dive into the twisted history of Ethernet on twisted pair wiring. The earliest forms of Ethernet used RG-8 style coaxial cable. It’s a thick, stiff cable requiring special vampire taps and lots of expensive equipment to operate.

The industry added BNC connectors and RG-58 coax for “cheapernet” or 10Base2. This reduced cost, but still had some issues. Anyone who worked in an office wired with 10Base2 can attest to the network drops whenever a cable was kicked out or a terminator was dropped.

The spark came when [Tim Rock] of AT&T realized that the telephone cables already installed in offices around the world could be used for network traffic. [Tim] and a team of engineers from five different companies pitched their idea to the IEEE 802.3 committee on Feb 14, 1984.

The idea wasn’t popular though — Companies like 3COM, and Digital Equipment Corporation had issues with the network topology and the wiring itself. It took ten years of work and a Herculean effort by IEEE committee chairwoman [Pat Thaler] to create the standard the world eventually came to know as 10Base-T. These days we’re running 10 Gigabit Ethernet over those same connectors.

For those who don’t know, this video is part of a much larger series about Ethernet, covering both history and practical applications. We also covered the 40th anniversary of Ethernet in 2020.

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