INPUT & OUTPUT DEVICES

Hardware The term hardware refers to the physical devices that you can see and touch in a computer system. Thus, the input, output, storage, control and processing devices are hardware.

Input Devices
Keyboard It is the most common input device. To enter both Alphanumerical & character Mechanical Typewriter Compatible Keyboards contain 108 Keys

Mouse
It is a small hand held pointing device connected. It has a rotating ball at the bottom and has two click buttons on the top. Light Pen It is a pencil shaped device. It is used to select screen co-ordinates by detecting the light coming form illuminated points on the CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) screen. Joy Stick It is a small rod (lever or stick) mounted on a rolling ball. This rod is used to control the screen cursor. It is mainly used for playing Computer or TV games.

Scanner It is used to acquire (scan) both character and graphics required for image processing or character recognition. It scans the image of a photograph or written information and communicates it to the CPU

Microphone
It is an input device, used to feed the audio input to the computer. The microphone is connected to the CPU. directly

MICR

Mark Recognition Devices

Magnetic Ink Character Recognition is a character recognition technology adopted mainly by the banking industry to facilitate the processing of cheques. And the characters are of unique fonts.

OCR Optical Character Recognition(Can recognize Characters from hard text ). Technique to recognize characters. Characters do not need to be in unique font. Characters may be hand written or type written OMR Optical Mark Recognition(Only can recognize mark for example a filled circle but cant recognize any character)

Output Devices

Monitor It is an electronic device Which is used to monitor the work process taking place in the computer. The output which is monitored on the monitor screen is known as the soft copy.

Speaker Listen to the audio output sent by the processor.

Plotters
A device used to produce graphical output. They are employed for plotting graphs, charts and other designs on paper. Drum Plotter

Flat Bed Plotter

Printers

Printers are the primary output devices used to prepare

permanent documents (hard copy), in human readable form.

There are several printers that are designed for different types of
applications.

Printers may be classified as Impact Printers Non-Impact Printers

 Impact Printers create characters by striking a print page with a print hammer (print head).

These can be classified as

Dot Matrix Printer (DMP) Line Printer

Dot Matrix Printers Dot Matrix Printers are the most commonly used printers with microcomputers. The characters are produced by a series of pins arranged vertically, which strike an inked rib-bon against the paper.

Line Printers Line Printers print complete lines up to 160 characters in width at speeds ranging from 300 to 2000 lines per minute.

Non-Impact Printers employ processes other than hammers to form characters on a print page. These are noiseless and more versatile and offer better quality outputs. These can be classified as Laser Printers Ink Jet Printers

Laser Printers

Laser Printers use a laser beam to write characters on a rotating drum that is electro-statically charged. The drum generates a paper copy in a manner similar to a Xerox copier. The speed varies from 6 to 120 pages per minute. They can also print graphics in different colors.

The print head of an Ink Jet Printer, form characters by spraying a very fine jet of magnetically or electrically charged ink through a nozzle and over horizontal and vertical deflectors. The deflectors enable the printer to vary the direction of the ink spray. The work at speeds of 1-2 pages per minute.