Cable Tags/Cable labels

Thu Dec 13 00:53:05 PST 2001

> How and what do you use to tag and/or label cables?

The only thing I ever saw that came close to being satifactory was due to 
none other than the legendary Arnold deLeon.  He found (or maybe created) a 
supplier of Cat-5 cables with _serial numbers_ on them, the same at both 
ends.  The numbers also encoded the length, IIRC.

You could say "do you have 15-5651?" and someone else could say "Yes" and 
unplug it, and you had a pretty good idea you were doing the right thing.

I didn't work at Synopsys, but I spotted this during a visit there, and 
said to myself, "Damn! I gotta do that!".

The physical labels I don't recall clearly.  Might have been heat-shrink, 
or maybe akin to the 3M product consisting of a length of clear tape with a 
little white tab on the end: you write on the tab then wrap the clear tail 
over it.  I used those, but they're a bear to take back off.  Hence the 
permanent serial numbers.