Section 9 Technical know-how activities feedback
Activity feedback: The back of the computer
(Adapted from the Connecting Communities ICT Tools Training Pack Equipment Module)
The correct answers are:
/ The power cord connects the computer to electrical power. It is a thick, round cable with a three-prong plug on one end and a three-hole plug on the other. / A/ USB (Universal Serial Bus) connector. Peripherals including scanners, printers and digital cameras can be connected to the USB port and used without having to shut down and start up the computer again. These ports transfer data to the serial ports. / I
/ Serial port connectors come in two sizes, for 9-pin and 25-pin ports. These are used to connect a serial mouse and external modems. A serial port sends data 1 bit at a time. / J
/ FireWire is Apple® Computer’s trade name for a high-speed data transfer technology. Transferring data at up to 800Mbps, FireWire delivers many times the bandwidth of the original USB ports. / E
/ Many mice and newer keyboards use a PS/2 connection instead of a keyboard or serial connection. / C
/ The mouse plug (a PS/2 connection) is very similar to the keyboard plug, and each is often wrongly inserted into the other’s port.
This plug is not used much these days, as mice now use the USB port, which allows data to be transferred much faster. / D
/ The network plug is used to connect to the internet and servers in an office, college or internet café – anywhere where a local area network (LAN) is in place. / G
/ The modem line connects the PC to the internet through the telephone line. / H
/ The fan keeps air flowing inside the case to remove the heat that all the processing generates. If it gets too hot inside the casing, the CPU will fail to work properly and your programs may crash. / B
/ A microphone, speakers and headphones connect to the audio ports of a sound card. There is also a serial port for connecting devices like musical keyboards and synthesisers. / L
/ A parallel port connector is used primarily by the printer. Scanners and external storage devices of many types also connect to the parallel port. A serial port sends data 1 bit at a time while parallel ports can send 8 bits at a time. Any device that is transferring a lot of data would be likely to require a parallel port. The parallel port uses a 25-pin connector. / F
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