Ports> are usually located in the back of your PC. Ports allow you to connect different peripheral devices to your PC. In plain English, a port is a connection to the outside world.

In older PCs, these ports are usually located on expansion cards. On newer PCs, some ports are built into the motherboard with ribbon cables> running from the motherboard to the port connections on the back of your PC. These are called integrated motherboards>.

Ports have different types of connectors. These connectors come in two types: male and female. Male connectors have exposed pins like a plug on an electrical cord. Female connectors accept the pins with matching receptacles, like a wall outlet.

Ports come in many flavors: parallel>, serial>, PS/2>, SCSI>, game>, and video>.