Unit 3: I/O Ports and Devices
Video 1.07 Ports and Connectors-
• Serial Ports- Transmit data one bit at a time. Their usually male and has 9 or 25-pins.
• Parallel Ports- Transmit data 8 bits at a time. Their usually female with 25-pins.
• Game Ports- They are usually females with 15 pins and arranged in 2 rows compared to the Video Port which also has 15-pins but are males and arranged in 3 rows.
Mouse and Keyboards-
• Earlier mice versions used Serial Connectors and keyboards used 5-pin DIN.
• Modern day mouse and laptops now use PS/2 which is a smaller 5-pin DIN, or USB. There is also Wireless keyboards and mouse now.
NIC (Network Interface Card)
• Responsible for connecting the computer to the LAN, or Internet.
• It converts parallel communication into serial communication.
• It connects to an RJ-45 connector to process the material
Modem
• Slowest way to connect to the internet thru the phone lines.
• Standard speed is 56 Kbps
• They convert analog signal from the phone lines into a digital format that the computer can use.
Video
• Computer nowadays come with 2 types of video ports; a VGA analog interface, D-type 15-pins, 3 row ports and DVI (Digital Visual Interface).
• Some have S-video ports that are round with 4 or 7 pins and they can be connected to the television.
USB (Universal Serial Bus)
• Hot Swappable meaning that you can plug them into the computer and it will be recognized without you having to reboot the computer.
• USB1 transmits at a speed of 12 Mbps and supports a maximum cable length of 3 meters.
• USB2 transmits at a speed of 480 Mbps and supports a maximum cable length of 5 meters.
• USB allows the computer to have up to 127 devices simultaneously connect to it.
SCSI
• They come in many different sizes but the most common one is the Narrow SCSI which has 50-pin for a Type A connector. There is also the Wide SCSI which has 68-pin for a Type P connector.
IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
• Uses a serial communication and like the USB it is also Hot Swappable.
• Often used for streaming media since it is fast.
Multimedia
• Microphone, Speaker, and Earphone jacks are usually looked on the back of a computer.
• They are color coded. 