February, 2001      Diablo Blue      Page 11

(Continued from page 10)

Serial Ports

There is normally at least one serial port, referred to as COM1. This might be used for an external modem, to sync your PDA, or to download images from a digital camera. This port uses a 9-pin D-type connector. (There used to be a 25-pin connector version, but I have not seen this connector used in years.) One or two of these ports are usually built into the motherboard. It is becoming common to have a front-mounted serial port for use with digital cameras. Windows supports up to four of these ports. If you need more serial ports, you can add more through USB converters.

USB Ports

USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. Intel created USB in response to user difficulties with adding hardware devices to computers. USB ports started appearing on computers after Windows 95 was released. The support for USB in Windows 95 was spotty at best, but subsequent Windows releases have excellent support. USB devices include scanners, printers, keyboards, mice, cameras, and even PDAs. USB ports are fast, providing a throughput of 12 megabits per second. USB connections use a small flat connector; a symbol that resembles a pitchfork usually identifies it. Most current motherboards will have one or two USB ports on the back of the computer. Many computers will also have an additional port on the front of the computer. This is useful for devices like cameras, where you only use the device occasionally.
There will not be enough USB ports for all of the devices you could end up with. But USB is capable of connecting up to 127 USB devices. You can increase your USB ports through a USB hub, a small box with one cable that connects to an existing port and then a series of ports to connect your devices. You may even have a hub on your monitor or USB keyboard. Be aware that there are powered and unpowered hubs. You may need a powered hub for certain devices. The hub on a keyboard is not powered but one on a monitor probably is. If you plug a device into a hub and it does not work, try connecting directly to the port. If that works, you have an unpowered hub and need a powered one. If you are buying a hub, I recommend buying a powered hub (just in case). I have not experienced this problem but have seen reports of it.

Network

Networks have finally made it to the home computer. Part of that is because people have more than one computer and are linking them together to share files or printers. I think that the biggest reason is because of high-speed connections like DSL and cable. A network allows you to share the high-speed Internet connection. The network connection will be a 10/100 base-T port. This means that the network port can communicate at either 10 MBPS (megabits per seconds) or 100 MBPS depending on the hub being used. There are other network possibilities but I have not seen them offered on new computers, so I will ignore them in this article. I will talk more about networks in a future article.

FireWire

FireWire can be thought of as USB on steroids. It works very similar to USB but it runs at a higher speed. This technology was conceived by Apple Computers (which is probably what slows the implementation). This is useful for talking to a digital video camera. FireWire supports data rates of 100, 200, and 400 Mbps (yes, faster than network speeds). It supports up to 63 devices, with a maximum cable length of 4.5 meters between devices.

Telephone

Virtually every computer system I found in my research includes an internal modem (whether you want it or not). Any modem you get will be V.90-compatible, meaning you will be capable of connecting at 56K. There will be a pair of telephone jacks for connecting to your household telephone system. The performance of these internal modems will be average but not extraordinary. In many cases, these will be processor-less modems (often referred to as WinModems because the first of this type of modem was called WinModem) that use your computer to control the modem functions fairly heavily. This should not be a problem unless you want to run something other than Windows for an operating system. I do not like internal modems (even when they are free). I normally rip out these modems and use an external modem (connected to my serial port). have lots of memory and large hard drives, bringing the system cost closer to $2500.