This is a common 'trick' for large loads like motors. By bringing out more of the motor windings from the stator the device can be used at more than one operating voltage. It increases the complexity of the windings though since they must be divided into appropriate sections and then the terminals made available. The same thing s done with motors designed for 120/240 V operation (not "high voltage" at all). It has littler to do with branch circuit wiring topology. You will notice we do not have 120 V bulbs and 60 V bulbs. This is what would be required to have some portion of alighting circuit in series and some portion in parallel. I personally do not do production wiring and use crimps for much at all. You will learn to dislike them when you start doing remodeling work and are no longer doing all 'new work'. I do charge extra when I am forced to deal with remodeling that has crimp connections. Simply cutting them off is often not an option since the remaining conductor length often then violates the minimum length required from the face of the junction box. I am sure it speeds up the 'production' installers though. Right now I have a house with a built in on one side of a wall, and a tile backsplash on the other in a kitchen. I need a couple new circuits for under-cabinet lighting. It looks like I will have to go through the back of the kitchen cabinets and fish upwards to the new junction boxes in the back of the upper cabinets. At least there are no crimps present in the boxes already containing some lighting switches.

Since this is now a discussion of hots and shorts...an interesting thing happened just the other day, The 20-25 year old GFCI in the bathroom died. There was only one other outlet on the circuit, an outside weather-tight box. No worries, simple replacement.... While not a professional, I know my way around 'lectricity....and respect it. (Got tagged by 12,000 v DC once from a neon sign transformer. I had built a functional helium-neon laser in 1968.) When it was time to change out the main panel box and upgrade from 100 to 200 amps, I pulled the ticket and did all the work myself and got high marks from the city's inspector. Also installed a 100 amp sub-panel in the greenhouse, and recently hard wired an 8kw, tri-fuel generator into the main panel via an interlock on the main panel. But back to the GFCI...installed the replacement, but it didn't work. At all. The reset button didn't seem to 'click' when pressed. My meter said the power feed was 118.3 v. Further investigation once removed revealed no continuity between anything. Carried it back and the hardware store gave me another. Same dam thing when installed: 118 at the feed lug, nothing anywhere. So back to the store with the second bogus unit and my meter. Demonstrated for the assembled crowd the lack of continuity and the non functional reset button. Grabbed a third off the shelf. Same story. Open circuits throughout.... *Three* bad right out of the box? One store guy opined that the reset button wouldn't 'reset' without power, but the first two had a proper input voltage present and the reset button still wouldn't engage. So I got my money back and bought a AF/GF breaker for the main panel. Everything works now, but I still can't understand why three Leviton GFCIs could be bad right out of the box... .

I would run a separate ground wire back to the earth ground/neutral point at the main service entrance. Never connect the ground wire to the neutral or to a separate ground rod (unless that ground rod is firmly bonded to the one at the main entrance, using at least #6 copper wire). The ground wire from the outlet back to the entrance may be bare or insulated copper. I would use at least the same size as the hot and neutral. I'm not positive what the NEC says, but I don't think the new ground wire would have to follow the same physical path back through the house as the original wiring. For example, if the original wiring runs through the walls, it might easier to run the ground wire under the house, tacked to the floor joists or to the ceiling joists of an unfinished cellar. The neutral wire should always be treated as a live wire, exactly like the hot wire. The purpose of the ground wire is to provide a return path back to the entrance ground, capable of carrying the full current and tripping the breaker, in case the neutral wire fails, or a short develops between the hot wire and an exposed part of the appliance. The ONLY place in the entire system where the ground and neutral should be connected together is at the service entrance point right at the meter.

I've never seen a surge strip without a ground. If you could find an old 2-pin plug strip, you could make one with an MOV, but why bother? That's effectively what you have anyway when you plug a 3-pin one into your current receptacle. An ungrounded surge strip provides some measure of protection from surges and lightning, but not nearly as much as a properly grounded one. As for your DSL friend working on your wiring - I recommend saying "no thanks." In most cities, it is not legal for an unlicensed person to work on your wiring, with one exception - YOU are permitted to do so, *if* you own the home, and *if* you obtain a permit from the city's building department. I was going to recommend that you install a GFI yourself - the only installation differences between "with a ground" and "without a ground" is that without a ground you simply don't connect anything to the ground terminal, and on the GFI face you stick a label that says "no equipment ground." But then I looked again at the photo you posted. It's tough to be sure, but the junction box your recept is in doesn't look very generous in size. It might be OK, but I'm a bit concerned that you might have a tough time fitting a GFI in there. I'd hate to have you start the job and not be able to finish it. So, if you really want a GFI, you can do two things: 1) Hire an electrician to install a GFI. 2) Buy a plug-in GFI adapter from the hardware store. But I'm not so sure a GFI is what you really want. I'm getting a sense that you think having a ground is helpful for reducing radiation exposure. I don't know if that's so; it's not my area of expertise. However, note that while a GFI will provide protection from electrical shock, and that's a very good thing, it won't provide a ground. In order to get a proper and safe ground, you'll have to have a new receptacle installed, with a homerun directly back to the house's main panel (breaker or fuse box). My guess is that your friend who can "ground your outlet" is talking about either "bootlegging" a ground, or running a separate ground wire back to the main panel. The first is dangerous. The second is so much work that you might as well go ahead and do it right, installing a new cable run and a new receptacle. Unless you have the time, skills, and inclination to study up on the techniques of home wiring, that's most likely a job for a pro. FWIW, I bought my first home computer in 1984. I was living in a late-1950s home where the only grounded receptacles were in the kitchen and garage. I didn't want my $2000 system destroyed by lightning or power surges, so I did as I described above - installed a new, properly grounded receptacle for the computer with a home run back to the main panel. That's what I recommend for you.