The Most Common
External Connectors
From A PC


The external connectors coming out of a PC are an important concept to understand. If you've ever taken apart your PC, you'll see that it has several external connectors out.

 

These include USB ports, Firewire ports, as well as serial and parallel ports. These ports are essential for connecting various devices like printers, digital cameras and digital camcorders to your PC. They also allow other devices like external hard drives and flash drives to be connected.

This article runs through some of the more common external connectors you'll expect to find in a modern PC. Read through this and you'll never be confused by these external connector terms again!

1. Universal Serial Bus

The first and most important external connector out of a PC is the Universal Serial Bus (USB). It is the most common and is used to connect to a wide variety of devices. These include computer mice, keyboards, digital cameras, handhelds, external disk drives, CD writers and DVD writers.

And let's not forget the humble flash drive. Millions of offices around the world use this device with a computer's USB port to transfer documents daily.
 

2. IEEE 1394 (FireWire)

Another important external connector is IEEE 1394 (FireWire). Firewire is much faster than USB and support a wide variety of products too. However, we do see less Firewire products on the market right now. Some of the devices that do have Firewire ports include camcorders, digital cameras and digital VHS players.
 

3. PC Card

Here's another important external connector - the PC Card. It was to be called PCMCIA and is important for plugging in modules to laptop and small PCs. PC Card based devices include storage cards, modem card, network adapters and even sound adapters.
 

4. Ethernet Port

The Ethernet port is a critical external connector. Without this, you cannot connect to a network from your PC (unless you've gone wireless). I know that without my Ethernet port, I'm often handicapped - and can't do work or surf the Net.
 

5. Sound Output Port

Some may argue that this is not a critical external connector. However, it is important for plugging speakers to your PC and therefore needed for sound production. I rate it as an common and important external connector too.
 

Conclusion

I've put up this article to help you learn more about the more common external connectors coming out of PC. Hopefully, this information will be of use to you when you set up a computer.


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