It was not Cat 5 but some strange two pair twisted shielded solid hard to work with stuff.
Ya, this sounds like "IBM - Type 1" Cable.
It's "STP" (Shielded Twisted Pair), with two #20-#22 solid twisted pairs, shielded by foil and an Aluminum/tinned Copper braid - all covered by a black PVC jacket.
Like Greg said, this was most likely used on an IBM Token Ring LAN (Local Area Network).
Also mentioned, was the speed of the Ring possibly reducing to 4 MBPS, from 16 MBPS.
That most likely happened, and the POS users on that "Ring" (or out of that MSAU) did not even notice the difference.
I dealt with a lot of Token Ring LANs at Banks, which were of the IBM System 4700 Architecture.
Teller Stations were simply Terminals ("Dumb Terminals" to be exact), which were driven from the 4701 / 4702 / 4705 Controller.
If a teller Station's Terminal changed speed, no one would even notice - mostly because the workload (Data) was so very basic!
As to the Wirenut splices on the Ethernet; there was one location where the Pairs were not twisted, and another location where the Pairs were twisted about 1 twist in
+/- 2 inches.
Looked like they stripped back an 8" section of jacket, then untwisted the pairs to make up the splices - but the pairs naturally re-twisted during the make-up work.
These Stations weren't doing anything that could be considered "Power Use", only Logon and pull Templates off the Server, then save things at the end of the sessions.
Don't even know if they (the users at the Workstations) really needed to Logon at all!
They may already had the Template Files on their Machines, and as far as file saves, this may have been done daily / weekly by Administrators, or an automatic archive application!
The reason I mention this (as many of you that deal with Office Workers know), is the Workstation users simply - by default - Logon to the LAN before doing anything... and I mean ANYTHING!!!
The funniest things to hear, when for some reason Server Access is unavailable are:
* The Network is down, so I cannot:- Work on the file(s) I saved yesterday to my machine,
- Send the document I am looking at right now, to the Printer next to me (local printer),
- End this game of Solitaire,
- Do anything!
As annoying as things may become in this part of the field, I really miss it a lot!
Actually, I miss all the stuff I was involved with, "back in the day!" (prior to 2004).
Now, I rarely deal with anything more than "simple LAN work", and certainly nothing with the complexity of the "Active Remodels" on Bank Branches, Loan Centers, and Corporate Campuses!
Makes one feel kind of used up and worthless.
Sorry for the sob story, it's bed time for me!
Scott35