I'm certain that 500 meters of 10base-5 cost several times more than this cable. This was the "original" popular ethernet. It was a coaxial cable about as big

I'm certain that 500 meters of 10base-5 cost several times more than this cable. This was the "original" popular ethernet. It was a coaxial cable about as big around as a finger and had a stripe around it every 2.5 meters. Wherever you needed a connection you found the nearest stripe, drilled into the cable until you just reached the core and inserted a special vampire tap attached to a transceiver the size of a shoe which sent another finger sized cable down to your device.