Ports (visual)

On the back of computers are a bunch of connections (commonly known as ports) for all the pieces of the computer to join together. All the connections have special names, and virtually no plug fits in the wrong port. So if you are having to put a computer together then it really shouldn't be hard, even if you don't know the names of the port.

First off let me show you a picture (click on the link) of the back of a common computer with the ports labled. The serial port and the joystick ports in the image are two ports that you may or may not find on the back of your computer. They are old and very outdated ports, and I don't understand why computer manufacturers can't get rid of them for good. Anyway I will not discuss them at all past this.

The ports that I will discuss are the power port (not shown in previous image), ps/2 port, USB port, Ethernet port, Firewire port (not shown in previous image), VGA port, DVI port (not shown in previous image), and the parallel port.

The power port is really quite simple; its what provides the power to you computer, and takes a standard power cord.

The ps/2 port has two uses and is color coded. The green color ps/2 port is used to plug mice into, and the purple color ps/2 port is used for the keyboard. These two plugs are still being built into computers even though they really should've been replaced by USB ports years ago. They are slowly being phased out and replaced by USB ports. Apple, Inc. (in May 1998) was the first company to completely replace their mouse and keyboard ports (they actually used ADB ports not ps/2) with USB ports.