Welcome to Identifying Ports and Connectors. After watching this video, you will be able to: Define a port and a connector. Differentiate between a port and an interface. Identify common ports and connectors. Devices connect to a computer using ports and connectors. A port is a hole or a slot that receives a connector and allows a device to physically connect to a computer. A connector is the distinctive plug at the end of a cable, jack, or electronic card that can be physically plugged into a port. Each port has a unique function and accepts only the connector designed specifically to fit into it. Common examples of physical ports and connector pairs include the USB port, HDMI port, Display port, and Speaker port. An interface is the point of communication between two or more entities. An interface can be either hardware or software-based. Examples of hardware-based interfaces include the point where a port or card connects to the computer motherboard, the point where a peripheral device connects to the computer, or a touchscreen device that records human inputs. Software interfaces provide routes for communication between software applications, the operating system, and hardware. For example, drivers are software interfaces that enable communication between the operating system and the computer's hardware components. Let’s take a deeper look and learn to identify commonly used interfaces and connectors. The Universal Serial Bus (USB) was built by a consortium of seven companies to replace the many varieties of connectors available in the market with a common, simple-to-use, and fast standard that could be used across devices and peripherals. Since its launch in 1996, the USB connector has gone through several iterations. When USB was first launched, it supported speeds of 1.5 to 12 mBits/second. It also supported four different connector types: Type A, Type B, Mini A, and Mini B. USB 2 was launched in 2001 to increase data transfer speeds up to 480 mBits/second. It also added support for the Mini AB connector, and introduced the Micro A, Micro B, and Micro AB connectors. The USB 3 series of updates saw speeds increase to 5 Gbits/second with USB 3.0 in 2008. The Type C connector was launched with USB 3.1 in 2014 with speeds of 10 Gbits/second. It was made backward compatible with all versions of USB up to USB 2.
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USB 3.2 was released in 2017 with
speeds of 20 Gbits/second. The Mini connector types were discontinued in this version. USB 4 based on the Thunderbolt 3 and 4 protocol specifications was released in 2019 and continues to be the latest and greatest version for USB devices. It supports speeds of up to 40 Gbits/second over a Type C connector. The Type A USB port has an elongated rectangle shape with four pins and carries both data and power. It is typically used for keyboards and mice. The Type B port is almost square with beveled outside top corners. These also have four pins and are mostly used with printers, scanners, and similar devices. Mini USB ports were introduced for use with smaller devices such as digital cameras, mobile phones, and tablets. They have nine pins and are smaller than Type A or B, and twice as thick as Micro USB ports. Micro USB ports are a similar width as Mini USB, but much thinner with only five pins. These were designed to replace Mini ports on smaller devices. Finally, the 24-pin Type C with a reversible connector is designed to be future proof and to replace various Type A and B connectors. Thunderbolt is a commonly used hardware interface developed by Intel and Apple. It was originally marketed under the name “Light Peak” but was later renamed to Thunderbolt. The Thunderbolt interface is very versatile, combining data transfer, display, and power into one cable. It allows up to six peripheral devices to be connected through a daisy chain. Thunderbolt interfaces have four versions. Versions 1 and 2 use the same connectors as a Mini DisplayPort or MDP. Versions 3 and 4 reuse the USB-C connector. While Thunderbolt 3 doubled the data transfer rate to 40 Gbit/second, Thunderbolt 4 has support for USB-4 protocol and data rates, dual-4K displays, and also supports Thunderbolt Alternate Hubs USB and not just daisy chaining. All Thunderbolt ports are identified using the Thunderbolt symbol to differentiate them from regular MDP and USB-C ports. Before Thunderbolt, FireWire was a popular interface on Macintosh computers and is comparable to the modern USB interface. It comes in various shapes, the 400 is a slimmer connector with one rounded side and the faster 800 connector looks like a thicker version of the USB. FireWire ports use a serial bus architecture to transfer information one bit at a time. This makes them lighter and cheaper than parallel buses that use a number of different physical connections. FireWire interfaces have been replaced with Thunderbolt and USB interfaces on modern computers. However, users with older computers, as well as the automobile and aerospace industries still use these ports. PS/2 ports were developed by IBM for their IBM Personal System 2 series of computers and are named after them. They are round and have six pins for connectivity. These ports were specifically designed to connect the keyboard and mouse to the computer. Although the two PS/2 ports look identical, they are not interchangeable, and they are identified by different colors and symbols. Although the PS/2 port is considered a legacy port, modern PCs may still carry them as they are preferred by gaming enthusiasts, legacy users, and industrial applications. eSATA is the most popular port to connect external storage devices such as external hard drives to computers. eSATA allows hot swapping, which is the replacement or addition of external devices without stopping, shutting down, or rebooting the host system. Since 2008, eSATA has been upgraded to the eSATAp interface that allows for both eSATA and USB devices to be connected through the same port. eSata has been through three main revisions and data transfer speeds have doubled with each revision. In this video you learned that: A port is a hole or slot that receives a connector and allows a device to connect to a computer. A connector is a plug at the end of a cable, jack, or electronic card that can be physically plugged into a port. An interface is a hardware- or software-based point of connection between two or more entities that enables communication. Common ports and connectors include PS/2, Thunderbolt, Firewire, eSATA, and USB.
