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The digital optical port is baked into the 3.5mm jack on most upper-end laptops and Macs. Though sadly my MacBook Air does not have one.

The port isn't the important bit that is added, it's the supporting circuitry and photo diode to drive it that adds complexity to the design.

And the little physical switch in the port that broke on my last MBP. My port got stuck in optical mode.

Mine got stuck serveral times too. Was alway able to fix it with a toothpick.