Input - Pointing Devices These devices are used to move an on-screen pointer or curs or (usually an

arrow). They are commonly used with graphical user interfaces (GUIs)

Mouse
A pointing device found on most PCs. Sensors on the bottom of the mouse detect when the mouse
is moved. Data about this movement is sent to the computer. Often used to control the pointer in a
GUI.

Touchpad / Trackpad
A pointing device found on most laptops. Used instead of a mouse since it takes up less space. The
user moves a finger across the touch pad and this movement data is sent to the computer. Usually
used to control the pointer in a GUI.

Trackball / Tracker Ball

This pointing device is not moved about like a mouse, instead it has a large ball that the user spins.
Data about which direction the ball is spun is passed to the computer. It can be used to control a GUI
pointer. Tracker balls are often used by people with limited movement (disabled) or by the very
young since they are easier to use than a mouse.

Touch Screen
A touch screen is an alternative to a separate pointing device. With a touch screen the user selects
items on the screen by touching the surface. This makes touch screen systems very simple to use.

Graphics Tablet
A pointing device often used by designers and artists to allow natural hand movements to be input
to graphics applications. A stylus is held like a pen and moved over the surface of the tablet. Data
about the stylus movements are sent to the computer. Since it is so like using a pen, it is very easy to
create ‘hand-drawn’ sketches.

Joystick / Joypad Used mainly for playing games. The user moves the joystick left/right, forward/back
and data about these movements are sent to the computer. Small joysticks can also be found on
some mobile phones.

Light Pen A light pen is a device used as a pointing device or to ‘write’ on the screen of a computer.
Light pens are rarely used today since graphics tablets and highquality touch screens provide similar
functionality.

Input - Audio / Visual Devices

Scanner
A device that ‘scans’ images, book pages, etc. Scanning is basically taking a close-up photograph (just
very slowly and with great detail). The scanned image data is passed to the computer. The most
common type of scanner is the flat-bed scanner which has a glass plate on which the item to be
scanned is placed. The item is illuminated and an image of it is captured by a moving scan ‘head’.
Scanned images can be further processed once inside the computer, e.g. OCR of printed text.

Digital Camera
A device that captures digital photographs. Most digital cameras do not directly input data int o a
computer - they store photographs on memory cards. The photographs can later be transferred to a
computer. A modern digital camera can capture 10 Megapixels o r more per photograph.
Video Camera
A device that captures moving images, or video. Like a digital camera, most video cameras do not
directly input data into a computer – the captured movies are stored on video-tape or memory cards
and later transferred to a computer. However, there are some situations where video cameras do
feed video data directly into a computer: television production and videoconferencing. In these
situations the video data is required in realtime.

Web Cam
This is a very basic video camera used to feed live video into a computer. The video data from a web
cam is low quality compared to a full video camera. However it is good enough for web chats (e.g.
using a messenger application such as MSN Messenger or Skyp e). Usually a web cam is clipped to
the top of a monitor, but many laptops now have web cams built into the edge of the screen.

Microphone
An input device that converts sound into a signal that can be fed into a computer. The signal from a
microphone is usually analogue so, before it can be processed by a computer, it must be converted
into digital data. An Analogue-to-Digital Convertor (ADC) is used for this (usually built into the
computer’s sound card) Many headphones now come with microphones to allow them to be used
with chat and phone applications.

Input - Card Readers

Magnetic Strip Reader

Many plastic cards, such as credit cards, have a strip of material that can be magnetised on the
back. Data can be stored here in the form of magnetised dots. Usually the data stored on this strip in
the same data shown on the front of the card (e.g. the credit card number, expiry date and customer
name). The stripe allows this data to be input to a computer system faster and more accurately than
by typing it in. A magnetic strip/stripe reader is used to read the data from the stripe. This is usually
done by ‘swiping’ the card through a slot on the reader.

Smart Card / 'Chip' Reader Modern credit cards and ID cards don’t use a magnet ic strip. Instead
they have a tiny ‘chip’ of computer memory embedded inside them. (These cards are often referred
to as smart cards.) Data can be stored in this memory and read back using a ‘chip’ reader. A card is
inserted into the reader where metal contacts connect to the metal pads on the front face of the
card. The reader can then access the memory chip and the data stored on it. Smart cards can store
much more data than magnetic strip cards, e.g. an ID smart card would store not only the owner’s
name and card number, but might also have a digital image of the person. Satellite TV decoders use
smart cards to store which channels a user has paid for. The data is encrypted so that it is not easy to
alter (you can’t add new channels without paying!) Many types of cards use this system: id cards,
phone cards, credit cards, door security cards, etc.

Input - Reading Text / Codes

All data could be input to a computer using a keyboard, but this would often be a slow process, and
mistakes would be made. Sometimes speed and accuracy is required...

MICR Reader
Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) is a technology that allows details from bank cheques to
be read into a computer quickly and accurately. The cheque number and bank account number are
printed at the bottom of each bank cheque in special magnetic ink using a special font. These
numbers can be detected by an MICR reader.
 OMR Scanner Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) is a technology that allows the data from a multiple-
choice type form to be read quickly and accurately into a computer. Special OMR forms are used
which have spaces that can be coloured in (usually using a pencil). These marks can then be detected
by an OMR scanner. Common uses of OMR are multiple-choice exam answer sheets and lottery
number forms.

OCR Scanner Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

is a software technology that can convert images of text into an actual text file that can then be
edited, e.g. using word-processing software). The result is just as if the text had been typed in by
hand. OCR is typically used after a page of a book has been scanned. The scanned image of the page
is then analysed by the OCR software which looks for recognisable letter shapes and generates a
matching text file. Advanced OCR software can recognise normal handwriting as well as printed text
- this is usually called handwriting recognition.

Barcode Reader / Scanner

A barcode is simply a numeric code represented as a series of lines. These lines can be read by a
barcode reader/scanner. The most common use of barcode readers is at Point-of-Sale (POS) in a
shop. The code for each item to be purchased needs to be entered into the computer. Reading the
barcode is far quicker and more accurate than typing in each code using a keypad. Barcode can be
found on many other items that have numeric codes which have to be read quickly and accurately -
for example ID cards.

Input - Sensors igcseict.info © 2009 Steve Copley A normal PC has no way of knowing what is
happening in the real world around it. It doesn’t know if it is light or dark, hot or cold, quiet or noisy.
How do we know what is happening around us? We use our eyes, our ears, our mouth, our nose and
our skin - our senses. A normal PC has no senses, but we can give it some: We can connect sensors
to it... A sensor is a device that converts a real-world property (e.g. temperature) into data that a
computer can process.

Input - Remote Control

These devices are very common. They send data signals each time a button is pressed using infrared
light or radio signals. The signals can control a computer (or a system that contains a small computer
such as a DVD player) from some distance. Often used to control a presentation slideshow.

Output - Audio / Visual

CRT Monitor A monitor

displays text and image data passed to it by the computer. A cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor is the
type that has been around for years and is large and boxy. CRT monitors are heavy and they take up
a lot of desk space. They have largely been replaced by flat-screen monitors. However some are still
used in the design industry since the colour accuracy and brightness of CRT monitors is excellent,
and designers need t o see true-to-life colours. Also, CRT monitors are generally cheaper than flat-
screen monitors. Flat-Screen Monitor (TFT or LCD) Over the past few years, as they have come down
in price, flatscreen displays have replaced CRT monitors.

Flat-screen monitors
Thy are light in weight and they take up very little desk space. Modern flat-screen monitors have a
picture quality that is as good as CRT monitors.
Digital / Multimedia Projector
Digital projectors are used in situations when a very large viewing area is required, for example
during presentations, for advertising, or in your home for watching movies. A projector connects to a
computer, a DVD player or a satellite receiver just like a ordinary monitor. The image is produced
inside the device and then projected out through a large lens, using a powerful light source.

Loudspeaker
If you want to hear music or sounds from your computer, you will have to attach loudspeakers. They
convert electrical signals into sound waves. Loudspeakers are essential for applications such as music
editing, video conferencing, watching movies, etc.

Output - Printing / Plotting If you want a physical copy of some data on paper (a ‘hardcopy’) you will
need a device that can make marks on paper - a printer or a plotter.

Dot Matrix
Printer A dot-matrix printer is named after the pattern (a grid or ‘matrix’) of dots used when creating
the paper printout. These dots are formed by tiny pins in the printer’s print head that hit an inked
ribbon against the paper leaving marks. As the print head moves along it leaves a pattern of dots
behind it which c an form letters, images, etc.

InkJet Printer
Cheap, high-quality, full-colour printing became available during the 1980s due to the development
of ink-jet printers. These printers have a similar print-head mechanism to a dot-matrix printer. The
print-head passes left and right acros s the paper. However, instead of using pins to hit inky marks
onto the paper, the ink -jet squirts tiny droplets of ink onto the surface of the paper. Several
coloured inks can be used to produce full-colour printouts. The droplets of ink come from tiny holes
(the jets) which are less than the width of a human hair in size. Each droplet creates a tiny dot on the
paper. Since the dots are so small, the quality of the printout is excellent (1200 dots-per-inch are
possible).

Laser Printer
Laser printers are very complex devices, and thus expensive to buy. However they are very cheap to
use. This is because they produce marks on paper using a fine dust called toner which is relatively
cheap to buy. A single toner cartridge will often last for 5,000-10,000 pages of printing. The laser
printer uses a complex system, involving a laser, to make the toner stick to the required parts of the
paper. (This system is very different to a dot-matrix or ink-jet, and you don’t need to know the
details.) The laser and toner system allows very fast printing compared to other printers (just a few
seconds per page).

Plotter
Plotters create hard-copy in a very different way to printers. Instead of building up text and images
from tiny dots, plotters draw on the paper using a pen. The pens are held in an arm which can lift the
pen up or down, and which can move across the paper. The arm and pen create a drawing just like a
human could, but much more accurately and more quickly. Different coloured pens can be used to
produce coloured line drawings. Plotters are often used by designers and architects since they work
with huge pieces of paper, far bigger than anything a normal printer could work with.
Data Storage
When we talk about ‘storing’ data, we mean putting the data in a known place. We can later come
back to that place and get our data back again. ‘Writing’ data or ‘saving’ data are other ways of
saying ‘storing’ data. ‘Reading’ data, ‘retrieving’ data or ‘opening’ a file are ways of saying that we
are getting our data back from its storage location.

Storage Media & Devices

The device that actually holds the data is known as the storage medium (‘media’ is the plural). The
device that saves data onto the storage medium, or reads data from it, is known as the storage
device. Sometimes the storage medium is a fixed (permanent) part of the storage device, e.g. the
magnetic coated discs built into a hard drive Sometimes the storage medium is removable from the
device, e.g. a CD-ROM can be taken out of a CD drive.

Hard Drives
Hard-drives have a very large storage capacity (up to 1TB). They can be used to store vast amounts
of data. Hard-drives are random access devices and can be used to store all types of films, including
huge files such as movies. Data access speeds are very fast. Data is stored inside a hard-drive on
rotating metal or glass discs (called ‘platters’).

Floppy Disc
A removable, portable, cheap, low-capacity (1.44MB) storage medium. Floppy discs are random
access devices used for transfer small amounts of data between computers, or to back-up small files,
etc. Access times are slow. Almost every PC used to have a floppy disc drive. These are obsolete
now, having been replaced by higher capacity technology such as CDROMs, DVDs and USB

Portable Hard Drive

A portable hard-drive is one that is placed into a small case along with some electronics that allow
the hard-drive to be ac cessed using a USB or similar connection. Portable hard-drives allow very
large amounts of data to be transported from computer to computer.

Read-Only Optical Discs

Read-only optical discs have data written onto them when they are manufactured. This data cannot
be changed. CD-ROM Compact Disc - Read-Only Memory (CD-ROM) discs can hold around 800MB of
data. The data cannot be altered (non-volatile), so cannot be accidently deleted. CD-ROMs are
random-access devices. CD-ROMs are used to distribute all sorts of data: software (e.g. office
applications or games), music, electronic books (e.g. an encyclopaedia with sound and video.)