1. Input and Output devices
By Azam Khan
8-C

2. Any machine that feeds data into
a computer is called an input device.
For example, a keyboard is an input
device, whereas a display monitor is
an output device. Input devices other
than the keyboard are sometimes
called alternate input
devices. Mouse, trackballs, and light
pens are all alternate input devices.

3.  A graphics tablet or digitizer is a
computer input device that enables a
user to hand-draw images and
graphics, similar to the way a person
draws images with a pencil and paper.
These tablets may also be used to
capture data or handwritten signatures.
It can also be used to trace an image
from a piece of paper which is taped or
otherwise secured to the surface.
 The device consists of a flat surface
upon which the user may "draw" or
trace an image using an
attached stylus, a pen-like drawing
apparatus. The image generally does
not appear on the tablet itself
but, rather, is displayed on the
computer monitor.

4.  Magnetic ink character recognition, or MICR, is a
character recognition technology used primarily by
the banking industry to facilitate the processing and
clearance of cheques and other documents. The
MICR encoding, called the MICR line, is located at
the bottom of a cheque or other voucher and
typically includes the document type indicator, bank
code , bank account number, cheque number and
the amount, plus some control indicator. The
technology allows MICR readers to scan and read
the information directly into a data collection device.
Unlike barcodes or similar technologies, MICR
characters can be easily read by humans.

5.  Optical character recognition, usually
abbreviated to OCR, is
the mechanical or electronic conversion of
scanned images of handwritten, typewritten
or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is
widely used as a form of data entry from
some sort of original paper data
source, whether documents, sales
receipts, mail, or any number of printed
records. It is a common method of digitizing
printed texts so that they can be electronically
searched, stored more compactly, displayed
on-line, and used in machine processes such
as machine translation, text-to-
speech and text mining .

6.  OMR,Short
for optical mark recognition, the
technology of electronically
extracting intended data from
marked fields, such as
checkboxes and fill-infields, on
printed forms. OMR technology
scans a printed form and reads
predefined positions and records
where marks are made on the
form. This technology is useful
for applications in which large
numbers of hand-filled forms
need to be processed quickly
and with great accuracy, such as
surveys, reply
cards, questionnaires and
ballots. A common OMR
application is the use of "bubble

7.  a strip of magnetic material on which i
nformation may be stored, as by an el
ectromagnetic process, for
automatic reading, decoding, or recog
nition by a device that detects magneti
c variations on the strip: accredit card
with a magnetic strip to prevent counte
rfeiting.

8.  A smart card, or integrated circuit
card (ICC) is any pocket-sized card with
embedded integrated circuits. Smart
cards are made of
plastic, generally polyvinyl chloride, but
sometimes polycarbonate.
 Smart cards serve as credit
or ATM cards, fuel cards, mobile
phone SIMs, authorization cards for pay
television, household utility pre-payment
cards, high-security identification and
access-control cards, and public
transport and public phone payment
cards.

9.  A touch screen is an electronic visual
display that the user can control
through simple or multi-touch
gestures by touching the screen with
one or more fingers. Some touch
screens can also detect objects such
as a stylus or ordinary or specially
coated gloves. The user can use the
touch screen to react to what is
displayed and to control how it is
displayed .

10.  A microphone is
a transducer or sensor that
converts sound into an electrical signal.
Microphones are used in many
applications such as telephones, tape
recorders, karaoke systems, hearing
aids, motion picture production, live and
recorded audio engineering, FRS
radios, megaphones, in radio and televisi
on broadcasting and in computers for
recording voice, speech
recognition, VoIP.

11.  The devices which are used to display
the data to the user either in the form
of hard copy or soft copy are called
output devices.
 The monitor is the most
common output device.

13.  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.

14.  A type of pen plotter that
wraps the paper around a
drum with a pin feed
attachment. The drum turns
to produce one direction of
the plot, and the pens move
to provide the other. The
plotter was the first output
device to print graphics and
large engineering drawings.
Using different colored
pens, it could draw in color
long before color inkjet
printers became viable.

15.  Flatbed plotter: A graphic plotter that
contains a flat surface that the paper
is placed on. The size of this surface
(bed) determines the maximum size of
the drawing.

16.  Micrographic plotters do not use
drums the paper or any other medium
is held on both sides at the edges by
pinch wheels which give back and
forth movement of the paper

17. Inkjet Plotter
 The inkjet plotter uses jets of ink pens.
The paper is placed on a drum and
inkjets with different colored inks are
mounted on a carriage. These are
capable of producing
multicolored, large drawings.