IO Devices

An input device can send data to another device, but it cannot receive data from another
device. Examples of input devices include the following.

Keyboard and Mouse - Accepts input from a user and sends that data (input) to the computer.
They cannot accept or reproduce information (output) from the computer.Microphone -
Receives sound generated by a user or other source (input) and sends that sound to a
computer. It cannot receive and reproduce (output) sound sent by other devices.Webcam -
Receives images generated by whatever it is pointed at (input) and sends those images to a
computer. It cannot receive and reproduce (output) images sent by other devices.

Outputdevices

An output device can receive data from another device and generate output with that data, but
it cannot send data to another device. Examples of output devices include the following.

Monitor - Receives data from a computer (output) and displays that information as text and
images for users to view. It cannot accept data from a user or other source and send that data
to another device.Projector - Receives data from a computer (output) and displays, or
projects, that information as text and images onto a surface, like a wall or a screen. It cannot
accept data from a user or other source and send that data to another device.Speakers -
Receives sound data from a computer or other device (output) and plays the sounds for users
to hear. It cannot accept sound generated by users and send that sound to another device.

Input and Output devices of computer.

Input Devices
A device that can be used to insert data into a computer system is called as input device.

It allows people to supply information to computers without any input devices, a computer
would only be a display device and not allow users to interact with it,

Examples of input devices include keyboards, mouse, scanners, digital cameras and Light
pen, joysticks, Touch-screen, OMR, OBR, OCR.

Keyboard
Most common and very popular input device is keyboard. The keyboard helps in inputting
the data to the computer. The layout of the keyboard is like that of traditional typewriter,
although there are some additional keys provided for performing some additional functions.
 Keyboard is of two sizes 84 keys or 101/102 keys, but now 104 keys or 108 keys keyboard is
also available for Windows and Internet.

Mouse
Mouse is most popular Pointing device. It is a very famous cursor-control device. It is a small
palm size box with a round ball at its base which senses the movement of mouse and sends
corresponding signals to CPU on pressing the buttons.

Generally it has two buttons called left and right button and scroll bar is present at the mid.
Mouse can be used to control the position of cursor on screen, but it cannot be used to enter
text into the computer.

Advantages
● Easy to use
● Not very expensive
● Moves the cursor faster than the arrow keys of keyboard.

Scanner
Scanner is an input device which works more like a photocopy machine. It is used when
some information is available on a paper and it is to be transferred to the hard disc of the
computer for further manipulation.

Scanner captures images from the source which are then converted into the digital form that
can be stored on the disc. These images can be edited before they are printed.
Joystick
Joystick is also a pointing device which is used to move cursor position on a monitor screen.
It is a stick having a spherical ball at its both lower and upper ends. The lower spherical ball
moves in a socket.The Joystick can be moved in all four directions.

The function of joystick is similar to that of a mouse. It is mainly used in Computer Aided
Designing (CAD) and playing computer games.

Light Pen
Light pen is a pointing device which is similar to a pen. It is used to select a displayed menu
item or draw pictures on the monitor screen. It consists of a photocell and an optical system
placed in a small tube.

When light pen’s tip is moved over the monitor screen and pen button is pressed, its photocell
sensing element detects the screen location and sends the corresponding signal to the CPU.

Magnetic Ink Card Reader (MICR)

MICR input device is generally used in banks because of a large number of cheques to be
processed every day. The bank’s code number and cheque number are printed on the cheques
with a special type of ink that contains particles of magnetic material that are machine
readable.

This reading process is called Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR). The main
advantage of MICR is that it is fast and less error prone.

Optical Character Reader(OCR)

OCR is an input device used to read a printed text. OCR scans text optically character by
character, converts them into a machine readable code and stores the text on the system
memory.

Bar Code Readers

Bar Code Reader is a device used for reading bar coded data (data in form of light and dark
lines). Bar coded data is generally used in labelling goods, numbering the books etc. It may
be a hand held scanner or may be embedded in a stationary scanner.

Bar Code Reader scans a bar code image, converts it into an alphanumeric value which is
then fed to the computer to which bar code reader is connected.

Optical Mark Reader (OMR)

OMR is a special type of optical scanner used to recognize the type of mark made by pen or
pencil. It is used where one out of a few alternatives is to be selected and marked. It is
specially used for checking the answer sheets of examinations having multiple choice
questions.

Touch screen
Touch screen is a input device. Touch screen technology is the direct manipulation type
gesture based technology. Direct manipulation is the ability to manipulate digital world inside
a screen without the use of command-line-commands. A device which works on touch screen
technology is coined as Touch screen. A touch screen is an electronic visual display capable
of ‘detecting’ and effectively ‘locating’ a touch over its display area.

It is sensitive to the touch of a human finger, hand, pointed finger nail and passive objects
like stylus. Users can simply move things on the screen, scroll them, make them bigger and
many more.
Output Devices
A device which is used to display result from a computer is called as output device.

It Allows people to receive information from computers. An output device is any peripheral
that receives or displays output from a computer. The picture shows an inkjet printer, an
output device that can make a hard copy of anything being displayed on a monitor. Output
device is electronic equipment connected to a computer and used to transfer data out of the
computer in the form of text, images, sounds or print.
Examples of output devices include : Digitizers, Plotters, LCD, Plasma Display, Printers, etc.

Digitizer
Digitizer is an input device which converts analog information into a digital form. Digitizer
can convert a signal from the television camera into a series of numbers that could be stored
in a computer. They can be used by the computer to create a picture of whatever the camera
had been pointed at.

Digitizer is also known as Tablet or Graphics Tablet because it converts graphics and pictorial
data into binary inputs. A graphic tablet as digitizer is used for doing fine works of drawing
and images manipulation applications.

Plotters
A plotter is a printer that interprets commands from a computer to make line drawings on
paper with one or more automated pens. Unlike a regular printer, the plotter can draw
continuous point-to-point lines directly from vector graphics files or commands. There are a
number of different types of plotters: a drum plotter draws on paper wrapped around a drum
which turns to produce one direction of the plot, while the pens move to provide the other
direction; a flatbed plotter draws on paper placed on a flat surface; and an electrostatic plotter
draws on negatively charged paper with positively charged toner.
 Plotters were the first type of printer that could print with color and render graphics and
full-size engineering drawings. As a rule, plotters are much more expensive than printers.
They are most frequently used for CAE (computer-aided engineering) applications, such as
CAD (computer-aided design) and CAM (computer-aided manufacturing).

Monitors
Monitor commonly called as Visual Display Unit (VDU) is the main output device of a
computer. It forms images from tiny dots, called pixels that are arranged in a rectangular
form. The sharpness of the image depends upon the no. of the pixels.

There are two kinds of viewing screen used for monitors.

● Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT)

● XLiquid Cristal Display (LCD)
● Plasma Display

Printers
Printer is the most important output device, which is used to print information on paper.

There are two types of printers

● Impact Printers
● Non-Impact Printers
Impact Printers
The printers that print the characters by striking against the ribbon and onto the paper are
called impact printers.

Characteristics of Impact Printers are following

● Very low consumable costs

● Impact printers are very noisy
● Useful for bulk printing due to low cost
● There is physical contact with the paper to produce an image
These printers are of two types

● Character printers
● Line printers
Character Printers:
Character Printers are printers which print one character at a time.

These are of further two types

● Dot Matrix Printer(DMP)

● Daisy Wheel
Dot Matrix Printer
 In the market one of the most popular printer is Dot Matrix Printer because of their ease of
printing features and economical price. Each character printed is in form of pattern of Dot’s
and head consists of a Matrix of Pins of size (5*7, 7*9, 9*7 or 9*9) which comes out to form
a character that is why it is called Dot Matrix Printer.

Advantages

● Inexpensive
● Widely Used
● Other language characters can be printed
Disadvantages

● Slow Speed
● Poor Quality
Line Printers
Line printers are printers which print one line at a time.

These are of further two types

● Drum Printer
● Chain Printer
Drum Printer
This printer is like a drum in shape so it called drum printer. The surface of drum is divided
into number of tracks. Total tracks are equal to size of paper i.e for a paper width of 132
characters, Drum will have 132 tracks. A character set is embossed on track.
 Advantages

● Very high speed

Disadvantages

● Very expensive
● Characters fonts can not be changed
Chain Printer
In this printer chain of character sets are used so it called Chain Printers.A standard character
set may have 48, 64, 96 characters.

Advantages

● Character fonts can easily be changed.

● Different languages can be used with the same printer.
Disadvantages

● Noisy
● Do not have the ability to print any shape of characters.
Non-impact Printers
The printers that print the characters without striking against the ribbon and onto the paper,
are called Non-impact Printers. These printers print a complete page at a time, also called as
Page Printers.
 These printers are of two types

● Laser Printers
● Inkjet Printers
Characteristics of Non-impact Printers

● Faster than impact printers.

● High quality.
● Support many fonts and different character size.
Laser Printers
These are non-impact page printers. They use laser lights to produces the dots needed to form
the characters to be printed on a page.

Advantages

● Very high speed.

● Very high quality output.
● Give good graphics quality.
● Support many fonts and different character size.
Disadvantage

● Cannot be used to produce multiple copies of a document in a single printing.

Inkjet Printers
Inkjet printers are non-impact character printers based on a relatively new technology. They
print characters by spraying small drops of ink onto paper. Inkjet printers produce high
quality output with presentable features.