MARAFASHA: Input/Output Devices

By : ATHIRAH BT ZAHARUDIN

In this post we will be discussing various input and output devices used with the computer.

A computer is a device that contains software and operating systems that enable the end user to enter, find, manipulate and store information.

An operating system is an interpreter between the hardware (Input/ Output devices) and the end user which recognizes the input from the input devices and sends the output to the display screen.

It also provides a platform for the software applications to run. Some of the most popular operating systems are Windows, Macintosh OS, and Linux .

An input device sends the information to the CPU and the output devices translates the results of processes from machine language into a form that is readable by the end user.
This can be categorized into two categories: hard copy and soft copy. Soft copy is a transient form of output and hard copy is a relatively permanent form of output which could be read and stored.

This post discusses on the various input and output devices and their relative importance.Here we discuss the important input and output devices and their importance.

>I/O devices can be characterized by

◦Behaviour: input, output, storage

◦Partner: human or machine

Data rate: bytes/sec, transfers/sec

INPUT DEVICES

Input devices are hardware devices that are used to enter data into the computer. Output devices are used to communicate the results of the data processed to the end user. There are different types of input devices like:

Keyboard

Pointing devices(eg:mouse)

Scanner

Barcode Reader

Optical Mark Reader

Magnetic strip Reader Graphics table

Microphone

MIDI devices

Finger printer reader

Camera

OUTPUT DEVICES

An output device is any piece of computer hardware equipment used to communicate the results of data processing carried out by an information processing system (such as a computer) which converts the electronically generated information into human-readable form.

Example of output device :