I just finished converting an old Western Electric telephone cord into a USB cable that I plan to use for an upcoming CA66 Build.
Cable is USB-C 2.0 to USB-A
connectors are from Zap Cables
Telephone cord is from Old Phone Works
If you have any questions about how it was all put together let me know!
absolutely stunning
Time fo find one of those beige telephone cords that my elementary school office had.
That is damn creative and awesome. Now I need to be on the lookout for some old school phones.
I’ve made a handful of usb cables so I’m familiar with the process and have the equipment needed. How do the wires work out? Is it just a four strand wire like usb?
I can only adapt you!
Yeah there are four strands so it matches up perfectly for USB 2.0. I couldn’t use wirestrippers with mine as each wire had a copper sheath that was pretty fragile. Had to cut around the plastic with an exact carefully. I imagine newer RJ11 cords would be easier to work with.
I’ve found this seller on ebay dealing in new old stock phone cables for anyone maybe looking for cheap ones to experiment on for converting to USB.
Absolutely brilliant. I adore this. Takes me right back to the 90s—in a good way. 
Are the D+ and D- a twisted pair to meet the USB spec?
Phone lines don’t require twisted pair, so unless you get a Cat5 cable in there it’s most likely not. Good news is it’s not all that important for relatively short runs and used with lower bandwidth devices like keyboards seeing as USB is rather forgiving. I wouldn’t really use it with an external HDD for important information, but I wouldn’t really use 2.0 for that either given the speed constraints.
As donutcat said, it is not a twisted pair but for the use of a keyboard isn’t posing any issues. So it doesn’t meet the spec but it doesn’t really matter.
