It does mean 2.2uF. A common convention is to put the miltiplier letter in place of the decimal point, so 4.7kOhms -> 4k7, etc. The idea is that the deciaml point cna be easily missed, the letter can't. So 2.2$\mu$F would become 2$\mu$2. But since $\mu$, and neither is $\Omega$, the convention for resisotrs was to turn 2.2Ohms into 2R2. Adnd for some unknown reson, this was also used for _microfarads)_ on capacitors, so 2R2 means 2.2uF. No, I don't mich like it either. I probalby have the DJ11 Prints, I wonder if the distribution panel has the same pinout. In any case, the distribution panel is simple, and presumalby has the same circuitry repeasted 16 times. To trace out the schematic shouldn't take long. Now, high speed is multi-megabits per second or more. -tony

[Using the prefix as the decimal point] Actaully some scans are just as good for adding or removing dots. And my handwriting is bad enough that I use the convention on my hand-drawn scheamtics a lot of the time. Another convention, used on the components themselves, is to give the value as a 3 digit number -- 2 digits and a power of 10. So that, for example,. '472' means 47*10^2 = 4k7 (if a resistor). Very common on surface mount components. Alas that one has a nasty ambiguity. What is the value of a resistor marked '220'? Is it 22*10^0 = 22 Ohms, or is it simply 220 ohms? I have an instrument [1] where one of the resisotr packs for the LED series resistors was incorrect -- it shouyld be 220 Ohms, it was labelled 220, but was 22 Ohms. The other pack on the same PCB was also labelled 220 but was 220 Ohms (the 2 resisotr packs came from different manufacturers). Yes, I did replace it. [1] A telephone line simulator. Probably off-topic, even though it does have IEEE-488 and RS232 interfaces and contains 6 microprocessors. -tony

[3 digit component values] Of course the reverse convention is to use the digits to represent colours. HP and Tektronix did it on their schematics (wires labelled 903 for a white wire with black and orange tracers, for example), the advantage being that the scheamtic was understandable in any language. Isn't it obvious? Resistors are easy to measure, even in-circuit, so they tell you what those are to save you the bother. Capacitors are a right pain to measure, so they are not going to help you out by printing the vlaue on them..... [Sorry, got a board of SMD parts on the bench at the momnnt to repair...] Ah yess... 'mfd' for microfarad is probably the main reason why 'mF' (millifarad) is not commonly used.. We all talk about 10000uF capacitors, rarely 10mF ones. I think I've seen at least one HP manual that uses mF though... Anyone else rememenbr $\mu\mu$F (uuF) for picofarad? I've never seen kF either. I have seen capacitors in cataloges where the vlaue could be given as 3kF though... I've given up reading electronics magazines... And a resistor looks like -\/\/\- :-) What? Do the people who write CAD programs ever think what they will be sued for? This sort ot thing is one reason why I steer well clear of CAD systems if I possibly can... Other old conventions I've come across. At least one scheamtic used 'M' for _thousand_ (!). So a 10M resisotr was 10000 ohms... The upside-down omega has 2 meanings. At one point it was used for 'mho', the reciprocal of ohms, now called a siemens. But before that it was used for megohms, at least by RCA. Since the lower-case omega looks a bit like 'w', at least one manual, realising that $\Omega$ was not in the standard character set used 'W' instead. There's a certain logic to that. -tony

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013, Mouse wrote: Old mil spec resistors can be even more fun and are great for confusing people who've never seen resistors with the 5th band (% failure rate per 1000 operating hours). The first 4 bands with these are the normal first digit, second digit, multiplier, and tolerance. I sorted out about 5 or so 1-gallon size ziplock bags of these a few months ago (full range of values up to about 22M ohms). The ARRL handbook has a bunch of those documented. Several of us discussed adding tables for them on Wikipedia but I don't think anyone has ever gotten around to doing that yet.

I've seen it quite recently, but only because I was looking at 60+ year old service manuals. Not electrical, but does anyone else remember 'millimicron' for nanometre? Ditto. I do stil lahve to stop and think one some of the 4-bad (+tolerance) E96 values, though. Ther are at elast 2 ways that resisotrs can end up with 5 colour bands. Either 2 digtis+multiplier + tolerance + something else (tempco?). Or 3 digits + multiplier + tolerance. At one point Maplin supplied a random mix of resistors coded both ways.... If you have a 20% resisotr marked as 370k I want to see it!. Nest we'll be going on about body-tip-spot coding... Well, 27 is a prefered value although not in thr 20% series. So 270k (red-violet-yellow) and 4k7 (yellow-violet-red) meet your requirements. Err, yes.. The colurs are the same, but the order they appear in is essentialyl random... And I've seen small tubular inductors with3 coloured bands where the multiplier is the middle band of the 3. Just to add to the amusement. -tony

Right.... Barrier strips (and called that) are certainly known over here, but not all that common. Yes, we sue them, but many more shops would stock chocolate blocks than barrier strips. Pity, I like the latter... [...] Yes, they should work fine, but have you looked at the prices? I suspec the OP could pick up a Unibus expansion box and keep his RL11s for less... -tony