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For those unfamiliar with computer hardware lingo, the names of the external ports in a computer can be quite confusing. Serial ports, parallel ports, USB ports — What do they mean? The difference among each is pretty easy to understand actually.
A port is any place in your computer where you can attach another hardware device such as a keyboard, mouse, fax, or printer. There are many types of ports that you will find in your computer. There are internal and virtual ports. There are also three jacks used to plug in speakers and microphones. These jacks are not true ports per se though. Then there are external ports that are used to connect peripheral devices to your computer. In this article, we will take a look at the three types of computer ports for peripheral devices: serial ports, parallel ports, and USB ports.
* Serial Ports
Serial ports are round in shape and about half an inch in diameter. They are commonly used to attach a mouse and a keyboard to your computer. The ends of the mouse and keyboard that are plugged into the computer contain a number of wires called pins. Pins are what permit the transfer of data from your computer to your peripheral device. As mentioned, jacks are not actually ports although they may function as one. Ports can transmit larger amounts of data compared to jacks.
* Parallel Ports
Parallel ports are trapezoidal in shape and sport two parallel rows of pins. One row is shorter than the other. Parallel ports have faster data transfer speeds than serial ports and can also transmit more information. This makes them ideal for monitors, printers, and other high-traffic peripheral devices.
* USB Ports
USB ports or Universal Serial Bus ports are narrow and rectangular in shape. You will not see any pins in a USB port. Instead of pins, USB ports use contact points.
USB ports are the fastest among the three computer ports for peripheral devices. Before there was a slower USB 1.0 technology but with the advent of USB 2.0, the relay of information between the computer and devices is greatly enhanced. Many printers and scanners now use USB ports to connect to the computer. Some new mice are also USB compliant and come with a plug adapter to give owners the option of connecting their mice to serial ports. You will enjoy this option if you use a lot of external hardware and are short on USB ports.
To recap, serial ports are round, parallel ports are trapezoidal, and USB ports are thin and rectangular. In terms of speed, USB ports are the fastest while serial ports are the slowest. |