New Intel Mini's Optical Audio

I am thinking about upgrading my current mini to the new Intel Mini due to the fact that it has optical audio. My mini is connected to my home theater and I want to take advantage of the digital sound. Here's my question:
Q: Does this new Intel Mini really have optical audio like you would find on a DVD player? I don't recognize the actual plug. Most equipment that I use with optical audio has that little black plastic square plugs that you remove when connecting an optical audio cable. My receiver has many inputs.
Do I need a proprietary cable to connect a new Intel Mini to my receiver's optical audio port?
Maybe this seems obvious, but I have to ask before I shell out the cash. Better safe than aorry.
Thanks in advance,
Marc
15 PowerBook G4 - 1.5GHz   Mac OS X (10.4)  

The audio out port on the new Intel-based Mac mini is a standard type of port. In Apple products, it's used in the AirPort Express, the G5 and Intel-based iMacs, and the new MacBook Pros. The port is a combination of a standard 3.5mm "headphone" port and a digital optical audio port. You can get a regular digital optical cable with the adapter at the online Apple store here. If you already have a digital optical audio cable, you can just get a "Toslink to mini Toslink adapter" like this.
However, if I were you, you don't need to buy a whole new Mac mini to get digital optical audio out. The $99 m-audio Transit USB audio adapter will give you digital optical audio out of your current Mac mini. It will allow you to play surround sound out of your Apple DVD Player application and specifically configure non-surround sound audio out of non-surround sound applications, like iTunes. I'm using the previous model of m-audio's USB adapter with my G4 Mac mini and it works very well.
-Doug

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