phone systems, old and less-old

[Chuck Guzis]

One aspect of the RJ21 coding that's always puzzled me was the ordering
of the colors.

25 pairs, where

White Red Black Yellow Violet for each "bank" and within each bank
Blue Orange Green Brown Gray

So the first pair would be White-Blue
and the last (25th) would be Violet-Gray

Does anyone know where the odd ordering (contrary to electronics color
code) originated?

--Chuck