Datasheet
cameras, by Apple (marketing it as FireWire) for a broad range of devices,
and by the 1394 Trade Association for anything and anyone.
Specialized memory slot: Many modern laptops can directly read from
tiny memory cards used in products including digital cameras, music play-
ers, PDAs, and cell phones. There is a dizzying array of these cards, includ-
ing Memory Stick, Secure Digital, SmartMedia, xD Picture Cards, and
CompactFlash. For example, Toshiba offers a slot capable of working with
many memory devices, calling it a Bridge Media slot; Dell has an 8-in-1 card
reader and a 13-in-2 card reader that pretty much cover the waterfront.
Infrared and WiFi ports: Technically, these aren’t ports since nothing
plugs into them from the exterior of the laptop. Instead, these high-speed
transceivers (transmitter/receiver devices) connect to similarly equipped
devices, including standalone printers and keyboards to wireless networks
that bring together other laptops, desktops, and Internet gateways.
Bluetooth and Wireless USB: Not yet common, these forms of wireless
communication are aimed at short-range cord-free communication. Many
cell phones use Bluetooth to upload and download address books, digital
photographs, ringtones, and other snippets of portable data. Wireless USB
transmits data from a laptop to devices including printers, pointing
devices, and digital cameras.
Legacy I/O options
As I’ve noted, the computer world is constantly changing, adding new technolo-
gies and improving on old ones. A bit of overlap is always there: The devices you
used last week don’t suddenly become unusable this week just because a new
and improved way of doing things has been introduced. The industry even has
coined terms to deal with this. If a new technology encompasses an older one
without making it obsolete, that is called a
downward compatible specification.
(A term that means the same thing, but is not often used by image-conscious
marketers is backward compatible.)
As an example, USB 2.0, the current specification for that high-speed means of
communication, is downwardly compatible with earlier USB 1.1 and 1.0 devices.
The older equipment works just as it always did (at the slower original speed),
while newer equipment designed for the newer specification performs faster and
with new features.
Yet another term is
legacy technologies. These devices and specifications have
been made obsolete by new replacements; in most cases manufacturers con-
tinue offering support for these legacy devices for a few years, but eventually
that ends. Examples of legacy devices include floppy disk drives, parallel ports,
standard serial ports, and dedicated ports for external keyboards and mice. My
older laptops still have built-in floppy disk drives and individual mouse, serial,
and parallel ports; my newer laptops dispense with all of these connection
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