Chuck (I think) mentioned that he had never seen a
proper specification of the RS232 (or whatever) signals.
I think CCITT standard V.28 is much the same thing, and it can be found at :
http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_tbr/001_099/002/01_20_63/tbr_002e01c.pdf
Actually, upon further reading, that's based on V.28. The actual V.28 document (which
does give
electrical characteristics of the signals) is at :
http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-V.28-199303-I/en
-tony