Consumer electronic entertainment center housing including a connections spine with a plurality of outlets, connector paths and converters for organizing and distributing interconnections between consumer electronic components supported in the housing

摘要

An electronic entertainment center housing that organizes the mass of wiring, adapters and convertors into a user friendly arrangement that permits the insertion and removal of the electronic components supported therein, as well as the tracking of errors in the entertainment center. The housing is adapted to removably support a plurality of different consumer electronic products. There are a plurality of external I/O connection outlets of different types in the housing and there is a connections spine in the housing that includes a plurality of I/O connection outlets of different types, a plurality of electrical connector paths for connecting pairs of the outlets in the spine with each other and a plurality of electrical connector paths for connecting outlets in said spine with the external outlets in said housing. At least one converter in at least one of the electrical connector paths converts an electrical signal input to one of said outlets of the connector path into a different electrical signal output from the other outlet of the connect or path.