What's That Yellow Port For On The Back Of My PC?

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What's That Yellow Port For On The Back Of My PC?

Planet13

4:27 pm on Oct 4, 2014 (gmt 0)

Hi everyone:

I am trying to figure out what the yellow port on the back of my computer is. It LOOKS like a monitor port, except it is wider and has only two rows of holes instead of the three rows of holes that the blue monitor port has.

It seems to be part of a multimedia card in one of the slots in the back of the com.

Thanks in advance.

not2easy

6:12 pm on Oct 4, 2014 (gmt 0)

I don't think color is standardized across brands or models, but it sounds like you have a parallel port - used to connect to some printers. It has been mostly replaced these days by USB/Firewire.

Look at the picture shown here to verify, and you can read about them at Wikipedia: [en.wikipedia.org...]

PCInk

7:04 pm on Oct 4, 2014 (gmt 0)

It could also be a game port:

[en.wikipedia.org...]

How many pins does it have?

Planet13

8:16 pm on Oct 4, 2014 (gmt 0)

It could also be a game port:

It does look similar to the one in the picture you linked to here:

[upload.wikimedia.org...]

How many pins does it have?

15 pins total (8 on one row, 7 on the other row). How many pins are there on the game port? (It's hard for me to tell in that photo whether that is the same number as the game port or not.)

not2easy

9:57 pm on Oct 4, 2014 (gmt 0)

Hard to tell from that shot, that looks like a VGA audio/video port.

J_RaD

2:10 am on Oct 5, 2014 (gmt 0)

gameport!

did we just take a blast back to 99

PCInk

2:10 pm on Oct 6, 2014 (gmt 0)

Yes, the gameport is 15 pins and although it does sound like a blast from the past, it was commonly used within the music industry with a "gameport to MIDI" cable.

The music industry still likes its old synths and they obviously have no USB or Firewire but many have MIDI connections instead.

Because of this, it is fairly easy to buy audio cards with the gameport part of it, even today.

Planet13

6:57 pm on Oct 7, 2014 (gmt 0)

@ PCInk:

funny that you should mention MIDI.

I used to do some music and I remember when midi first came out. I had an atari and a Roland MT32 and had a blast with them.

I thought that for sure that SOMETHING would have come along and replaced MIDI by now, but I guess that it is still really popular / universal for didgital communications between computers and synths.

LifeinAsia

9:02 pm on Oct 7, 2014 (gmt 0)

I was going to make a comment that even RD-D2 probably had a MIDI port, but thought I would check Google to see if someone already pointed it out one way or another.

Didn't find anything, but did find a hack to put your Roomba under MIDI control.

Proving once again that some people on the Internet have way too much time on their hands...