Legacy port

In computing, a legacy port is a computer port or connector that is considered by some to be fully or partially superseded.^[1] The replacement ports usually provide most of the functionality of the legacy ports with higher speeds, more compact design, or plug and play and hot swap capabilities for greater ease of use. Modern PC motherboards use separate Super I/O controllers to provide legacy ports, since current chipsets do not offer direct support for them. A category of computers called legacy-free PCs omits these ports, typically retaining only USB for external expansion.

A parallel port implemented as a PCI card. Users can use expansion cards to add deprecated legacy ports to newer computer systems that do not provide them.

USB adapters are often used to provide legacy ports if they are required on systems not equipped with them.

Common legacy ports

Legacy port	Typical appearance	Typical uses	Replacement(s)
Centronics port, parallel port		Printer,[2] scanner, removable media	USB, Wi-Fi, Ethernet
External parallel SCSI		Removable media	USB, Thunderbolt, Serial Attached SCSI
AT connector / DIN		Keyboard	USB
Serial port / RS-232		Console, modem, mouse[2]
Game port / DA-15		MIDI, gaming devices such as joysticks[2]
PS/2 port / 6-pin mini-DIN		Keyboard, mouse[2][3][4]
Apple Desktop Bus / mini-DIN		Low speed external peripherals; such as keyboard, mouse, or joystick
LocalTalk / mini-DIN		OldWorld Macintosh printer and LAN	USB, Wi-Fi, Ethernet
Bus Industry Standard Architecture (ISA)		Connect peripheral cards to motherboard[2]	PCI, PCI Express
VGA / DE-15		Display connector[5]	DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort
Parallel ATA[6]		Internal hard drives, CD-ROM	Serial ATA, M.2
Floppy drive connector		Floppy drives, tape drives	USB
IEEE 1394 (FireWire)		Video devices, external storage	USB 3.0, Thunderbolt
Accelerated Graphics Port		Graphics card	PCI Express
PC Card		Laptop storage cards, other peripherals	ExpressCard, USB

See also

• Legacy encoding
• Legacy system