IO Port Cards Archive

For most people, PC sound is nothing more than an afterthought. You plug in your speakers or headphones, and sound comes out. Why complicate things any more than they need to be? The answer is that dedicated sound cards still have their place in today’s PC marketplace. For instance, suppose you’re trying to squeeze every last cycle out of your processor. In that case, running …

Very few interfaces have the rich, varied history of the serial port. They get there name from the way they transfer data. Just a single bit at a time, in a series. Serial technology laid the foundation for our modern communication protocols. USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. SATA stands for Serial ATA, which stands for Serial AT Attachment, which (strangely enough) stands for Serial …

A desktop computer can be a pricey investment, but it offers several benefits when compared to a laptop. Perhaps the most important benefit is that you can continue to upgrade it over time. So instead of buying a new laptop every three or four years, your desktop rig can last a decade or more. Normally, when you think of upgrading your desktop, you think of …

With USB 3.1 becoming increasingly common, manufacturers are dropping support for older interfaces in favor of the latest trends. With support for up to 10 Gbps of bandwidth, the new standards seem to leave the once-popular Firewire in the dust. But for most applications, 10 Gbps is excessive. You certainly can’t write to external storage devices at that rate, and many useful devices still perform …

The Parallel port, or as you may know it the “printer port,” was in use with computers as early as 1981. The port remained in use all the way until 1996 when it was superseded by the USB standard. If you were using computers in the 90s, you’ll quickly recognize its massive 25 pin socket. The port was widely used as it was very inexpensive …