3.1. Introduction to Computers - sidebar

Motherboard [src]

Some Older External Ports

PS/2

PS/2 ports were for connecting peripherals such as your mouse (1 above) and keyboard (2 above) to the computer, but are now outdated. PS/2 based mice and keyboards have now been replaced by USB ports as the popular standard. This trend for USB over PS/2 started in circa 2004.

Serial

An outdated piece of technology, serial ports (5 above) were most often used to connect the mouse and keyboard. By circa 2000, most personal computers stopped relying on serial ports and were replaced by PS/2 and/or USB ports.

Parallel

Parallel ports (6 above) are used to connect other peripherals such as joysticks, and more commonly, printers. Similar to the serial port, this technology is slowly being phased out in favor of USB. Parallel ports can still be found in many motherboards today.

VGA

A VGA (7 above), or Video Graphics Array, connector is used to connect a monitor or other video equipment. The same connector is sometimes used for high definition television and is sometimes called an RGB connector. The modern equivalent is USB and the High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI).

DA-15

The DA-15 port shown (8 above) has been used for network connectivity and for video output.

Audio

The audio input and stereo output ports (9 above) connect to external speakers, a microphone, head sets, and possibly a game. The external ports are color coded by industry standard.

Firewire

Technically known as the IEEE 1394 interface, but dubbed by Apple as Firewire (not shown above), this connection medium hoped to surpass USB in terms of speed and popularity. While it did outperform USB v2 in speed tests, uptake was very limited due to the existing widespread use of USB.

Firewire is the standard for high definition audio and video transfer and may be found on many digital camcorders.

Also known by the brand names i.LINK and Lynx.

eSATA [src]

SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) is a computer bus interface for connecting to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives and optical drives inside the system box. eSATA is an external port for drives.

SCSI

Pronounced "scuzzy", SCSI (not shown above) was used primarily as a connection interface for tape drives and hard disk drives. SCSI has been superseded in favor of newer and cheaper technologies such as USB and Firewire in the home market.

SCSI provides a high-speed (up to 5 Gbps) bus interface that allows up to 8 or 16 devices to be attached. It is still used for high-end workstations and servers.

ExpressCard

The ExpressCard and slot (not shown above) is used primarily on laptop computers. It replaces the older PC Card (also called PCMCIA) shown at right. The ExpressCard comes in two sizes, although the ExpressCard/34 may be used in an ExpressCard/54 slot.

Hardware that may be plugged into a computer via an ExpressCard includes connect cards, FireWire 800 (1394B), USB 3.0, 1Gb/sec Ethernet, Serial ATA external stick drives, solid-state drives, external enclosures for desktop size PCI Express graphics cards, wireless network interface cards, TV tuner cards, common access card (CAC) readers, and sound cards.[src]

Other card slots may also be available, such a PC cards, smart cards, and secure digital cards