Hardware Devices Introduction to Computers

Input Devices:
The input devices are used to communicate with the computer .It consists
of devices which accept data and information from the outside world in human
readable form and convert it into machine readable form before providing it to the
main memory. These devices are often referred to as peripherals because they
are physically separated from the electronics that make up the brain of the
computer. Some typical input devices are
ƒ Key board
ƒ Mouse
ƒ Joystick
ƒ Light pen
ƒ Scanner
ƒ Voice input device

KEYBOARD:
A keyboard is a series of switches connected to a microprocessor that monitors
the state of each switch and initiates a specific response to a change in that state

A typical keyboard has four basic types of keys:

• Alphanumeric keys for entering general information.

• Numeric keys located above the alphabetic keys are labeled with both
numbers and symbols. When we press these keys, we enter the indicated
number or the symbol while holding the shift key.
• Function keys labeled F1 through F12, perform functions assigned to them
by the software such as saving documents or selecting text.
• Screen navigation and editing keys such as Tab, Backspace, Escape etc.
are used for moving the cursor around on the screen and for editing
purpose.

The most common keyboards are:

• 101-key Enhanced keyboard

• 104-key Windows keyboard
• 82-key Apple standard keyboard
• 108-key Apple Extended keyboard

Working of keyboard:

The processor in a keyboard has to understand several things that are important
to the utility of the keyboard, such as:

• Position of the key in the key matrix.

• The amount of bounce and how to filter it.

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Hardware Devices Introduction to Computers

• The speed at which to transmit the typematics.

The key matrix is the grid of circuits underneath the keys. In all keyboards except
for capacitive ones, each circuit is broken at the point below a specific key.
Pressing the key bridges the gap in the circuit, allowing a tiny amount of current
to flow through. The processor monitors the key matrix for signs of continuity at
any point on the grid. When it finds a circuit that is closed, it compares the
location of that circuit on the key matrix to the character map in its ROM. The
character map is basically a comparison chart for the processor that tells it what
the key at x,y coordinates in the key matrix represents. If more than one key is
pressed at the same time, the processor checks to see if that combination of
keys has a designation in the character map. For example, pressing the a key by
itself would result in a small letter "a" being sent to the computer. If you press
and hold down the Shift key while pressing the a key, the processor compares
that combination with the character map and produces a capital letter "A."

Keyboards rely on switches that cause a change in the current flowing through
the circuits in the keyboard. When the key presses the keyswitch against the
circuit, there is usually a small amount of vibration between the surfaces, known
as bounce. The processor in a keyboard recognizes that this very rapid
switching on and off is not caused by you pressing the key repeatedly. Therefore,
it filters all of the tiny fluctuations out of the signal and treats it as a single key
press.

If you continue to hold down a key, the processor determines that you wish to
send that character repeatedly to the computer. This is known as typematics. In
this process, the delay between each instance of a character can normally be set
in software, typically ranging from 30 characters per second (cps) to as few as
two cps

As you type,

• The processor in the keyboard or the keyboard controller notes that a

key has been pressed.
• The keyboard controller places the code into a part of memory called the
keyboard buffer that is usually about 16 bytes large.
• This code is called the key’s scan code.
• The keyboard controller then signals the computer system software that
some thing has happened at the key board. It doesn’t specify what has
occurred.

This signal that the keyboard sends to the system software is a special kind of
message called an interrupt signal. The keyboard sends the signal only when it
receives a complete signal.

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Hardware Devices Introduction to Computers

MOUSE:

Mouse is a common pointing device. The advent of the mouse and the graphical
user interface, which links a pointer on the computer display to the movement of
a mouse, has opened the powerful world of computers to a population previously
excluded by the obscurity of computer languages and the command-line
interface.

The main goal of any mouse is to translate the motion of your hand into signals
that the computer can use. Almost all mice today do the translation using five
components:

1. A ball inside the mouse touches the desktop and rolls when the mouse
moves.
2. Two rollers inside the mouse touch the ball. One of the rollers is oriented
so that it detects motion in the X direction, and the other is oriented 90
degrees to the first roller so it detects motion in the Y direction. When the
ball rotates, one or both of these rollers rotate as well.
3. The rollers each connect to a shaft, and the shaft spins a disk with holes
in it. When a roller rolls, its shaft and disk spin
4. On either side of the disk there is an infrared LED and an infrared
sensor. The holes in the disk break the beam of light coming from the
LED so that the infrared sensor sees pulses of light. The rate of the
pulsing is directly related to the speed of the mouse and the distance it
travels.
5. An on-board processor chip reads the pulses from the infrared sensors
and turns them into binary data that the computer can understand. The
chip sends the binary data to the computer through the mouse's cord.

JOYSTICK:

Joystick, a popular pointing device, is used mostly for playing computer games
but also for other tasks. A joystick usually has a square or rectangular plastic
base to which is attached a vertical stem. Control buttons are located on the
base and sometimes on top of the stem. The stem can be moved in all
directions to control the movement of an object on the screen. The buttons
activate various software features, generally producing on-screen events. A
joystick is usually a relative pointing device, moving an object on the screen
when the stem is moved from the center and stopping the movement when the
stem is released.

In industrial control applications, the joystick can also be an absolute pointing

device, with each position of the stem mapped to a specific on-screen location

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Hardware Devices Introduction to Computers

LIGHT PEN:

Light Pen is a pointing device in which the user holds a wand, which is attached
to the computer, up to the screen and selects items or chooses commands on
the screen (the equivalent of a mouse click) either by pressing a clip on the side
of the light pen or by pressing the light pen against the surface of the screen. The
wand contains light sensors and sends a signal to the computer whenever it
records a light, as during close contact with the screen when the non-black pixels
beneath the wand's tip are refreshed by the display's electron beam. The
computer's screen is not all lit at once—the electron beam that lights pixels on
the screen traces across the screen row by row, all in the space of 1/50 of a
second. By noting exactly when the light pen detected the electron beam passing
its tip, the computer can determine the light pen's location on the screen.

The light pen doesn't require a special screen or screen coating, as does a touch
screen, but its disadvantage is that holding the pen up for an extended length of
time is tiring to the user.

SCANNER:

Optical Scanner, a computer input device that uses light-sensing equipment to

scan paper or another medium, translating the pattern of light and dark (or color)
into a digital signal that can be manipulated by either optical character
recognition software or graphics software. A frequently encountered type of
scanner is “flatbed”, meaning that the scanning device moves across or reads
across a stationary document. On a flatbed scanner such as the common office
copier, objects are placed face down on a flat piece of glass and scanned by a
mechanism that passes under them. Another type of flatbed scanner uses a
scanning element placed in a stationary housing above the document.

Other scanners work by pulling in sheets of paper, which are scanned as they
pass over a stationary scanning mechanism, as in the common office fax
machine. Some specialized scanners work with a standard video camera,
translating the video signal into a digital signal for processing by computer
software.

A very popular type of scanner is the hand-held scanner, so called because the
user holds the scanner in his or her hand and moves it over the document to be
scanned. Hand-held scanners have the advantage of relatively low cost;
however, they are somewhat limited by their inability to scan areas more than a
few inches wide.

How Scanner works:

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All the scanners use a similar approach to scan a page. To take a digital picture
of a document a flatbed scanner moves a fluorescent bulb over the page. The
light is reflected by the page and focused by a lens onto a receptor called a
charged couple device (CCD).

A CCD can read light intensity and since a darker area reflects less light than
lighter areas, the device can measure the brightness of every pixel that it scan
and assign a value to it. These values are stored as index or palette numbers
that identify the brightness of pixel as closely as possible.

All a CCD can do is measure brightness in a range of grays from pure white to
pure black. When the scanned image is displayed on the screen, the digitizing
process is reversed and the numeric value of each pixel in the original image is
used to control the brightness and color of its corresponding pixel on the display
screen. Once an image has been stored in the computer’s memory and
displayed on the screen, it can be manipulated by a program designed to work
with image of this kind.

OUTPUT DEVICES:
The output devices transfer information from the main memory to the outside
world. Computers perform all the operations in binary code and results produced
are also in binary form. The output devices receive the results in binary form and
convert them into human readable form before communicating them to the user.
Typical output peripherals include
ƒ Monitor
ƒ Printer
ƒ Plotter
Magnetic tape and diskettes can also be considered as output peripherals as
data and programs are often recorded to one of these external storage memory
devices for long term storage.

MONITOR:
The monitor or Video Display Unit (VDU) is the most popular output device used
for visual display of text or graphics. It displays messages telling the user what to
do next or output the results to be read by the user.
Most desktop displays use a cathode ray tube (CRT), while portable computing
devices such as laptops incorporate liquid crystal display (LCD), light-emitting
diode (LED), gas plasma or other image projection technology. Because of their
slimmer design and smaller energy consumption, monitors using LCD
technologies are beginning to replace the venerable CRT on many desktops.

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LCD is type of display that uses a liquid compound having a polar molecular
structure, sandwiched between two transparent electrodes. When an electric field
is applied, the molecules align with the field, forming a crystalline arrangement
that polarizes the light passing through it. A polarized filter laminated over the
electrodes blocks polarized light. In this way, a grid of electrodes can selectively
"turn on" a cell, or a pixel, containing the liquid crystal material, turning it dark. In
some types of LCD displays, an electroluminescent panel is placed behind the
LCD screen to illuminate it. Other types of LCD displays are capable of
reproducing color.

Monitors can be classified into those that can display only textual information and
those that can display both text and graphics. There are monochrome (black and
white) or color monitors. Monitors can also be classified as high resolution or low
resolution depending on how finely they can display text and graphics.
Resolution refers to the number of individual dots of color, known as pixels,
contained on a display. Resolution is typically expressed by identifying the
number of pixels on the horizontal axis (rows) and the number on the vertical axis
(columns), such as 640x480

PRINTER:
Printer is an output device attached to the computer for printing information on
paper known as hardcopy or printout. Printers receive information from the
memory in binary coded form and translate it into human readable form before
printing for human use.

Printers can be categorized in several different ways. The most common

distinction is impact and nonimpact.

IMPACT PRINTERS:
Impact printers physically strike the paper and are exemplified by pin dot-matrix
printers and daisy-wheel printers

Dot matrix printer:

Dot matrix printer use a printhead containing pins, or wires, arranged in a column
to print characters. As the printhead passes across the paper, the computer tells
it which pins in the printhead are to be fired to form a particular character. As the
pins are fixed they strike an inked ribbon against the paper. The printed dots are
arranged in an invisible matrix. The number of pins or wires and dots determine
the character’s resolution.

The latest printers have 18 or 24 wires in their printhead. Dot matrix printers form
the shape of character by a number of dots and not with a character shape itself,
therefore the print quality of these printers is not very high.

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Hardware Devices Introduction to Computers

Daisy Wheel Printer:

The printhead of a daisy wheel printer is a circular wheel, about 3 inches in
diameter with arms or spokes. The character spaces are embossed at the outer
end of the arms. The shape of printer wheel resembles the petals of a daisy
flower and hence it is named daisy wheel printer.

To print a character, the wheel rotates to the proper position and an energized
magnet then presses the letter against the ribbon leaving an impression on the
paper behind the ribbon.

NON-IMPACT PRINTERS:
Non-impact printers include every other type of print mechanism, including ink-
jet, and laser printers.

Ink-jet Printer:
Ink-jet printer uses fine nozzles, which are arranged in a pattern similar to that of
pins of dot matrix printhead. Nozzles spray a stream of ink toward the paper.
These printers have a speed of about 200 characters per second. Although the
quality of print is high, the ink-jet can suffer from clogging. Ink-jet printer is
preferred whenever we require a color printout.

Laser Printer:
It is an electrophotographic printer that is based on the technology used by
photocopiers. A focused laser beam and a rotating mirror are used to draw an
image of the desired page on a photosensitive drum. This image is converted on
the drum into an electrostatic charge, which attracts and holds toner. A piece of
electrostatically charged paper is rolled against the drum, which pulls the toner
away from the drum and onto the paper. Heat is then applied to fuse the toner to
the paper. Finally, the electrical charge is removed from the drum and the excess
toner is collected. By omitting this final step and repeating only the toner-
application and paper-handling steps, the printer can make multiple copies.

Laser printers are very fast. They can print eight or more pages per minute.
Laser printer output can be both text and graphic and can be very close to
professional printing quality. The dots making up the image are so closely
spaced that they looked liked characters typed on a typewrite. Most laser printers
can print 600 dots per inch.

PLOTTER:
A plotter is an output device used to produce hardcopy using continuous lines.
Plotters are used for a variety of applications, which include drawing graphs,
making maps, plotting civil engineering, drawing and mechanic components.
Plotter work on the principle of a human hand holding a pen and moving it on

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paper. Plotters are normally very slow output devices because of excessive
mechanical movement required during plotting but they still plot much faster than
a draft man does and the output is of better quality.

Plotters are mainly of two types, flatbed and drum type.

Flatbed Plotter:
Flatbed plotter is less expensive and is used in many smaller computing
systems. It plots on paper that is spread and fixed over a rectangular flatbed.
Pens of different colors are mounted in the pen holding machine that moves on
the surface in two orthogonal directions. The pen can be raised or lowered on to
the paper during the drawing operation. The microprocessor in the plotter selects
the desired pen and controls its movement under the control of the computer.

Drum Plotter:

Drum plotters are usually used with mainframe and mini frame computer
systems. The paper on which the design has to be made is placed over a drum
that rotates back and forth to produce vertical motion. The pen is mounted on a
carriage, which moves across the width of the paper and horizontal movement of
the pen create the required design under the control of the computer.

There are also other kinds of plotters

ƒ Ink-jet plotters are cheaper but they consume ink rapidly and the ink is
smear able until dry.
ƒ Electrostatic plotters are expensive and require regular maintenance.
ƒ Thermal plotters are fast but they require special paper and can print only
two colors.

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Hardware Devices Introduction to Computers

Storage Devices:
Storage Devices are apparatus for recording computer data in permanent or
semi permanent form. There are two main kinds of storage devices
• Primary (main) storage devices
• Secondary (auxiliary) storage devices
The former refers to random access memory (RAM) and the latter refers to disk
drives and other external devices.

Auxiliary storage devices can be categorized into two main types

Š Magnetic Storage Devices
Š Optical Storage Devices
• CD-ROM
• DVD-ROM

Storage involves the process of writing data to the storage medium and reading
data form the storage medium. The part of auxiliary storage that performs
read/write operations is known as read write head.

MAGNETIC STORAGE DEVICES:

These devices use magnetic techniques for reading data from the media and
writing data to the media. The orientation of magnetic field can be used to
represent data, and these devices can represent “on” and “off” state without the
continual source of electricity. These devices include
• Magnet tape
• Hard Disk
• Floppy Disk

Magnetic Tape:
It is a thin strip of polyester film coated with magnetic material that permits the
recording of data. Because tape is a continuous length of data storage material
and because the read/write head cannot "jump" to a desired point on the tape
without the tape first being advanced to that point, tape must be read or written
sequentially, not randomly. These are used to store data that is not used often
such as backup copies of your hard disk. The access time is slower in sequential
access devices. The time taken to access data in magnet tapes depends on
Length of the tape, Speed of the drive and Location of data.

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Hardware Devices Introduction to Computers

Hard Disk:
A hard includes
Š One or more metal platters mad e of aluminum mounted on a single Spindle,
Š Each platter is covered with magnetic coating.
Š The entire unit is sealed in a chamber.

Floppy Disk:
Floppy or magnetic disk is a round, flat piece of Mylar coated with ferric oxide, a
rust-like substance containing tiny particles capable of holding a magnetic field,
and encased in protective plastic cover, the disk jacket. Data is stored on a
floppy disk by the disk drive’s read/ write head, which alters the magnetic
orientation of the particles. Orientation in one direction represents binary 1;
orientation in other, binary 0. Depending on its capacity, such a disk can hold
from a few hundred thousands to over one million bytes of data.

SIZE/ TYPE CAPACITY

5.25 in. DD 360 KB
5.25 in. HD 1200 KB or 1.2 MB
3.5 in. DD 720 KB
3.5 in. HD 1440 KB or 1.44 MB

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