PORTS
- Serial Port- A serial port is an interface that allows a PC to transmit or receive data one bit at a time. It is one of the oldest types of interfaces and at one time was commonly used to connect printers and external modems to a PC. Modern serial ports are used in scientific instruments, shop till systems such as cash registers and applications like industrial machinery systems.
Compared to a parallel port, the data transfer rate of a serial port is slower. The serial port standard is RS-232. This standard is used for transmitting serial communication between devices, which are usually called data communications equipment (DCE) and data terminal equipment (DTE). The serial port uses a nine-pin (DE-9) connector or a 25-pin (DB-25) connector. Originally, the standard used 25 pins. Because many of the pins were unused and were quite bulky, the smaller DE-9 connector became popular.
- Parallel Port– The Parallel port can transmit data one byte at a time and therefore is at least eight times faster than serial port. In the earlier days the parallel ports were used for connecting printers to the desktop.
- Network Port- A Network port is used to connect a PC to the local area network. Most network cards contain a port that accepts a RJ-45 connector, which looks similar to a telephone connector, but looks larger.
- Keyboard/Mouse Port-The PS/2 port is a 6-pin mini-DIN connector used for connecting keyboards and mouse to a PC compatible computer system.
- Monitor Port- The monitor port is use to connect a monitor to a PC. Also the multimedia projections system is connected to the PC using the monitor port only. Some computers also come with an s-Video port that can be used to connect the computer to a television. Various types of monitor ports are- Display port, Mini Display port, HDMI port, Dual link DVI port, DVI-1 port, VGA port etc.
- Modem/Phone Port- The modem and phone port are used to connect the PC to a phone outlet and connect a telephone to the phone jack respectively. It is connected through RJ-11 connector.
- SCSI Port- The SCSI ports are high speed parallel ports generally used to attach printers, scanners and hard disk devices. So these SCSI ports are also used for high speed parallel transmission between the device and the desktop and devices like printers, scanners and hard devices need high speed transfer of data and therefore the SCSI ports are common in all these devices.
- MIDI Port- A MIDI port is used to connect a MIDI, MIDI device. A full form of a MIDI device is musical instrument digital interface and these MIDI ports is use to connect a MIDI device to a computer. MIDI devices include music keyboards and other instruments that can be connected the computer to compose music to be stored electronically.
- IRDA Port- Another important port which is used now a day is IrDA. The full form of IrDA is Infrared Data Association port that receives infrared transmission from such devices as wireless keyboards, wireless mouse and portable devices but in the infrared ports the keyboard or mouse must be placed right in front of the port for appropriate transmission, for error free transmission. So in the earlier desktops the IrDA port was very common but now a day that IrDA port has been replaced by another wireless port in which the line of sight is not important.
- Game Port- A game port is used to connect a joystick, game pad, steering wheel, or other device which are commonly used for gamming applications which are commonly used for computer game programs. So using a game port these devices can be connected and those devices provide interfaces for development of the computer games.
- USB Port- The USB ports are used to connect USB devices to the computer and now USB port is becoming standard. Most of the devices have now USB interface and are connected using the USB port to the desktop and that is the reason now a day’s every PC the new and modern desktop come with 3 to 4 USB port so as to connect simultaneously 3-4 USB devices.
- FireWire Port- The FireWire ports are used to connect FireWire data devices to the computer. Similar to USB, a FireWire hub can also be used to connect multiple devices to a single port and FireWire devices also are hot swappable like USB ports.
