Module I

Input and Output

Devices
Ms. Greeshma K V
Assistant Professor
M.Sc. Forensic Science
Kerala Police Academy

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 Computer - Input Devices
• Following are some of the important input devices which are used in a
computer
• Keyboard • Graphic Tablet
• Mouse • Microphone
• Joy Stick • Magnetic Ink Card Reader(MICR)
• Light pen • Optical Character Reader(OCR)
• Track Ball • Bar Code Reader
• Scanner • Optical Mark Reader(OMR)

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

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 Keyboard
• The keys on the keyboard are as follows −
S.No Keys & Description
Typing Keys
1 These keys include the letter keys (A-Z) and digit keys (09) which
generally give the same layout as that of typewriters.
Numeric Keypad
It is used to enter the numeric data or cursor movement. Generally, it
2
consists of a set of 17 keys that are laid out in the same configuration used
by most adding machines and calculators.

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 Keyboard
S.No Keys & Description
Function Keys
The twelve function keys are present on the keyboard which are arranged in a row at
3
the top of the keyboard. Each function key has a unique meaning and is used for
some specific purpose.
Control keys
These keys provide cursor and screen control. It includes four directional arrow
4
keys. Control keys also include Home, End, Insert, Delete, Page Up, Page Down,
Control(Ctrl), Alternate(Alt), Escape(Esc).
Special Purpose Keys
5 Keyboard also contains some special purpose keys such as Enter, Shift, Caps Lock,
Num Lock, Space bar, Tab, and Print Screen.

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 Mouse
• Mouse is the most popular pointing device.
• It is a very famous cursor-control device having a small palm size box
with a round ball at its base, which senses the movement of the mouse
and sends corresponding signals to the CPU when the mouse buttons
are pressed.
• Generally, it has two buttons called the left and the right button and a
wheel is present between the buttons.
• A mouse can be used to control the position of the cursor on the
screen, but it cannot be used to enter text into the computer.

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

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 Joystick
• Joystick is also a pointing device, which is used to move the 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 the joystick is similar to that
of a mouse. It is mainly used in Computer
Aided Designing (CAD) and playing computer
games.

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 Light Pen
• Light pen is a pointing device 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 the tip of a light pen is moved over the
monitor screen and the pen button is pressed,
its photocell sensing element detects the screen
location and sends the corresponding signal to the CPU.

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 Track Ball
• Track ball is an input device that is mostly used in notebook or laptop
computer, instead of a mouse.
• This is a ball which is half inserted and by moving fingers on the ball,
the pointer can be moved.
• Since the whole device is not moved, a track
ball requires less space than a mouse.
• A track ball comes in various shapes like a ball,
a button, or a square.

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 Scanner
• Scanner is an input device, which works more like a photocopy
machine. It is used when some information is available on paper and it
is to be transferred to the hard disk of the computer for further
manipulation.
• Scanner captures images from the source which
are then converted into a digital form that can
be stored on the disk. These images can be
edited before they are printed.

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 Digitizer
• Digitizer is an input device which converts analog information into
digital form.
• Digitizer can convert a signal from the television or 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 as it converts
graphics and pictorial data into binary inputs.
• A graphic tablet as digitizer is used for fine works of drawing and
image manipulation applications.

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 Microphone
• Microphone is an input device to input sound that is then stored in a
digital form.
• The microphone is used for various applications such as adding sound
to a multimedia presentation or for mixing music.

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 Magnetic Ink Card Reader (MICR)
• MICR input device is generally used in banks as there are 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 advantages of MICR is that it is
fast and less error prone.

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

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 Bar Code Readers
• Bar Code Reader is a device used for reading bar coded data (data in
the form of light and dark lines).
• Bar coded data is generally used in labelling goods, numbering the
books, etc.
• It may be a handheld 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 that the
bar code reader is connected to.

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 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.

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 Computer - Output Devices
• Following are some of the important output devices used in a
computer.
• Monitors
• Graphic Plotter
• Printer

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 Monitors
• Monitors, commonly called as Visual Display Unit (VDU), are 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 number of pixels.
• There are two kinds of viewing screen used for monitors.
• Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT)
• Flat-Panel Display

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 Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT) Monitor
• The CRT display is made up of small picture elements called pixels.
• The smaller the pixels, the better the image clarity or resolution.
• It takes more than one illuminated pixel to form a whole character,
such as the letter ‘e’ in the word help.

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 Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT) Monitor
• A finite number of characters can be displayed on a screen at once.
• The screen can be divided into a series of character boxes - fixed
location on the screen where a standard character can be placed.
• Most screens are capable of displaying 80 characters of data
horizontally and 25 lines vertically.
• There are some disadvantages of CRT −
• Large in Size
• High power consumption

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 Flat-Panel Display Monitor
• The flat-panel display refers to a class of video devices that have
reduced volume, weight and power requirement in comparison to the
CRT.
• You can hang them on walls or wear them on your wrists.
• Current uses of flat-panel displays include
calculators, video games, monitors, laptop
computer, and graphics display.

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 Flat-Panel Display Monitor
• The flat-panel display is divided into two categories −
• Emissive Displays − Emissive displays are devices that convert
electrical energy into light. For example, plasma panel and LED
(Light-Emitting Diodes).
• Non-Emissive Displays − Non-emissive displays use optical effects
to convert sunlight or light from some other source into graphics
patterns. For example, LCD (Liquid-Crystal Device).

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 Printers
• Printer is an output device, which is used to print information on
paper.
• There are two types of printers −
• Impact Printers
• Non-Impact Printers

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 Impact printers
• Impact printers print the characters by striking them on the ribbon,
which is then pressed on the paper.
• Characteristics of Impact Printers are the following −
• Very low consumable costs
• 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

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 Character Printers
• Character printers are the printers which print one character at a time.
• These are further divided into two types:
• Dot Matrix Printer(DMP)
• Daisy Wheel

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 Dot Matrix Printer
• In the market, one of the most popular printers is Dot Matrix Printer.
These printers are popular because of their ease of printing and
economical price.
• Each character printed is in the form of pattern of dots and head
consists of a Matrix of Pins of size (5*7, 7*9, 9*7 or 9*9) which come
out to form a character which is why it is called Dot Matrix Printer.

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 Dot Matrix Printer
• Advantages
• Inexpensive
• Widely Used
• Other language characters can be printed
• Disadvantages
• Slow Speed
• Poor Quality

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 Daisy Wheel
• Head is lying on a wheel and pins corresponding to characters are like
petals of Daisy (flower) which is why it is called Daisy Wheel Printer.
• These printers are generally used for word-processing in offices that
require a few letters to be sent here and there with very nice quality.

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 Daisy Wheel
• Advantages
• More reliable than DMP
• Better quality
• Fonts of character can be easily changed
• Disadvantages
• Slower than DMP
• Noisy
• More expensive than DMP

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 Line Printers
• Line printers are the printers which print one line at a time.
• These are of two types −
• Drum Printer
• Chain Printer

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 Drum Printer
• This printer is like a drum in shape hence it is called drum printer.
• The surface of the drum is divided into a number of tracks.
• Total tracks are equal to the size of the paper, i.e. for a paper width of
132 characters, drum will have 132 tracks.
• A character set is embossed on the track. Different character sets
available in the market are 48 character set, 64 and 96 characters set.
• One rotation of drum prints one line.
• Drum printers are fast in speed and can print 300 to 2000 lines per
minute.

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 Drum Printer
• Advantages
• Very high speed
• Disadvantages
• Very expensive
• Characters fonts cannot be changed

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 Chain Printer
• In this printer, a chain of character sets is used, hence it is called
Chain Printer. A standard character set may have 48, 64, or 96
characters.
• Advantages
• Character fonts can easily be changed.
• Different languages can be used with the same printer.
• Disadvantages
• Noisy

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 Non-impact Printers
• Non-impact printers print the characters without using the ribbon.
• These printers print a complete page at a time, thus they are also called
as Page Printers.
• These printers are of two types −
• Laser Printers
• Inkjet Printers

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 Non-impact Printers
• Characteristics of Non-impact Printers
• Faster than impact printers
• They are not noisy
• High quality
• Supports many fonts and different character size

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 Laser Printers
• These are non-impact page printers.
• They use laser lights to produce the dots needed to form the characters
to be printed on a page.

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 Laser Printers
• Advantages
• Very high speed
• Very high quality output
• Good graphics quality
• Supports many fonts and different character size
• Disadvantages
• Expensive
• Cannot be used to produce multiple copies of a document in a
single printing

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 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.
• They make less noise because no hammering
is done and these have many styles of printing
modes available.
• Color printing is also possible. Some models
of Inkjet printers can produce multiple copies
of printing also.

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 Inkjet Printers
• Advantages
• High quality printing
• More reliable
• Disadvantages
• Expensive as the cost per page is high
• Slow as compared to laser printer

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 Plotters
• Plotters are a special type of output device.
• It is suitable for applications:
1. Architectural plan of the building.
2. CAD applications like the design of
mechanical components of aircraft.
3. Many engineering applications.

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 Plotters
• Advantages:
• It can produce high-quality output on large sheets.
• It is used to provide the high precision drawing.
• It can produce graphics of various sizes.
• The speed of producing output is high.

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 Drum Plotter
• It consists of a drum. Paper on which design is made is kept on the
drum.
• The drum can rotate in both directions. Plotters comprised of one or
more pen and penholders.
• The holders are mounted perpendicular to drum surface.
• The pens are kept in the holder, which can move left to the right as
well as right to the left.
• The graph plotting program controls the movement of pen and drum.

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 Drum Plotter

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 Flatbed Plotter
• It is used to draw complex design and graphs, charts.
• The Flatbed plotter can be kept over the table.
• The plotter consists of pen and holder.
• The pen can draw characters of various sizes.
• There can be one or more pens and pen holding mechanism.
• Each pen has ink of different color.
• Different colors help to produce multicolor design of document. The
area of plotting is also variable.
• It can vary A4 to 21'*52'.

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 Flatbed Plotter

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