Pretty much every cable you can buy will have connectors described as male or female. A familiar example of a male and female connector is a power socket. The plug (with the pins) is the male connector, while the socket (with the holes for the pins to go into) is the female connector. In most cases you'll find a male connector on the end of a cable and a female connector on the component it plugs into, although there are a few exceptions.
Male-to-Male
The familiar cables that connect your computer to other devices are generally male-to-male connectors. The monitor cable, the printer and scanner cables and the ethernet cable that connects it to the network are all male-to-male. If you're looking to replace missing or damaged cables for any of your peripherals or to network your computers, these are the cables to look for.
In most cases these cables have identical connectors at each end, but there are exceptions. USB cables often have a type A USB connector at one end to connect to the computer and a type B USB connector on the other end to connect to devices like printers, scanners and digital cameras. There are also a few adapter cables, eg. a USB to parallel printer cable, which replaces the original parallel printer cable and enables you to connect the printer to the USB port instead.
Male-to-Female
Extension cables and adapters both make use of male-to-female connectors.
An extension cable has the same type of connector at each end - one male and one female - and is simply used to make a cable longer. Power extension cables, with female sockets at one end and a male plug at the other, are probably the most familiar, but extensions are available for many type of cable. Extension cables for keyboards, mice and monitors make it possible to position these in the most convenient place, rather than being limited by the positioning of the computer, and cat5 extensions are useful if you want to move the computer a little further away from the network hub.
An adapter is used to effectively convert one kind of connector to another. Imaging you have a serial device you want to connect to your computer but no free serial port. A USB to serial adapter has a male USB connector on one end, which plugs into a USB port on the computer. At the other end is a female serial connector, into which you can plug the device. The adaptor effectively turns the female USB connector on the computer into a female serial connector.
Female-to-Female
A female-to-female connector can be used to connect two pieces of cable together. Like the male-to-female connectors, they can have the same connector at each side, simply passing through the same signal, or they can be adapters to join two different types of cable, e.g. a serial to RJ45 connector. This would be used to connect a serial device to a network - the device's own serial cable can be plugged into one side, and an ethernet cable into the other. Female-to-female connectors are ideal when you have the male-to-male cable to attach to both ports, and simply need to join them in the middle.
• Buy one, get one free - see our offers on network and printer cables from QLTY, ready for Ethernet and printer connections.
• Computer learning courses are available from Misco in association with New Horizons Computer Learning Centres, giving you full 24/7 mentor support for a range of IT courses.
• Breakthrough the technical jargon with the Misco Jargon Buster guide, so you can tell your ATX from your Intel!