Lullaby for a Wearly Cable Installer

Lyrics: © 1987 Michael Rubin
Tune: "Lullaby for a Weary World" by T.J. Burnside

I wonder how my world can live with such a lousy standard:
R-S-2-3-2 (two thirty two)
With male and female cable ends, receive and transmit sometimes crossed,
And all the pins are optional and different every time.

Chorus:
Make me a cable to wire my CPU's
Give me a pinout spec that everyone agrees on
Connectors strong enough to hold when they get yanked
And make me a protocol so sweet and fine
That I can go back home and get some sleep.

And every damn computer maker's got their own connector
for R-S-2-3-2 (two thirty two)
There's little round ones, DB-9's, RJ11's and 14's
And that DB-25 back there's Centronics parallel.

Chorus

Bridge:
But E.I.A.'s no help at all, nor DIN or even ANSI.
And if I made my own I'd just have one more kind of port,
And still one more adapter cable for each bloody micro
But I will not let it go; I'll make 'em all use radio!

And when the FM band's all full of data lost and scrambled
R-S-2-3-2 (two thirty two)
I'll pray St. Vidicon of Cathode hears me through the radio noise,
And untangles all my cables so I'm on-line once again.
And may God grant my cable plant clean data end-to-end.

Chorus