Provision is made in the housing of a host to provide a socket, or sockets, to which a
peripheral piece of equipment can be connected for receiving directly from the host the
low voltage DC power it requires. The socket(s) are connected electrically to the outputs of a power supply (or
regulator) of a host for providing the
low voltage needed to power the
peripheral. The power supply may be mounted on the rear face of a computer. The principal feature of the invention resides in the use of a connector for connecting the host DC power to the
peripheral DC
power usage device. The connector comprises pins connected to a selected
resistor in the power supply. The
resistor value (i.e., resistance) is selected to produce a pre-determined control
voltage which is fed back to a
DC to DC converter in the host's internal power supply. The converter comprises a
pulse width modulation control device. The control
voltage determines the
duty cycle (i.e., pulse width) of the modulation to reduce the output from a maximum
voltage to an appropriate voltage suitable for the particular peripheral
power usage device. Thus, by simply selecting the appropriate connector (or cable) having the proper pins correlated to a selected
resistor previously installed in the power supply, the voltage level for the corresponding peripheral device is automatically selected. In an alternative embodiment, the DC power distribution apparatus of the present invention comprises a stand-alone unit having one or more universal ports for receiving a cable with a connector containing the appropriate pins for a selected DC
power usage device.