On Wed, 25 Sep 2019 12:45:24 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 9/25/19 10:37 AM, wrote:

[snip]

The yellow and green on the old 3 wire line set was used for selective
ringing. I had a party line in 1984 and I know this for sure.
You must just be young if you never saw 3 wire line cords. The 4 wire
cord did not come out until the Princess phone in the 60s.

They also used 3 conductor station wire until the Princess.

The house I'm in now was built in 1969. The old phone wire is
3-conductor (red/green/yellow).

I grew up in a house with a party-line phone. IIRC, that just had 2 wires.

There may only be 2 coming in from the street but inside the house
party 1 is on the red/green and party 2 is on red yellow. I found this
out when I hooked up a phone in a house I was renting in 84 and I
didn't know it was a party line. When I did the normal green yellow
connection at the Dmark my phone rang when it was for me or the other
guy. The other guy ended up calling the telco because I was on the
line when they answered a call The phone man is the one who told me
about the yellow and green thing. I was red/yellow.