COMPUTER SYSTEM

OUTPUT DEVICES

Output unit consists of devices with the help of which we get the information from computer.
This unit is a link between computer and users.

Output devices translate the computer's output into the form understandable by users.

Monitors

Monitor commonly called as Visual Display Unit (VDU) is 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 the pixels.

There are two kinds of viewing screen used for monitors:

 Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT)

 Flat-Panel Display

Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT) Monitor

In the CRT, display is made up of small picture elements called pixels for short. The smaller the
pixels, the better the image clarity or resolution. It takes more than one illuminated pixel to
form whole character, such as the letter 'e' in the word help.

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

Flat-Panel Display Monitor

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

The flat-panel display are divided into two categories:

 Emissive Displays - The emissive displays are devices that convert electrical energy
into light. Examples are plasma panel and LED (Light-Emitting Diodes).
  Non-Emissive Displays - The Non-emissive displays use optical effects to convert
sunlight or light from some other source into graphics patterns. Example is LCD
(Liquid-Crystal Device)

Printers

Printer is the most important output device, which is used to print information on paper.

There are two types of printers:

Impact Printers

The printers that print the characters by striking against the ribbon and onto the paper, are
called impact printers.

Characteristics of Impact Printers are the following:

 Very low consumable costs

 Impact printers are 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

Character Printers:

Character Printers are printers, which print one character at a time.

These are of further two types:

 Dot Matrix Printer (DMP)

 Daisy Wheel

Dot Matrix Printer

In the market, one of the most popular printer is Dot Matrix Printer because of their ease of
printing features and economical price. Each character printed is in form of pattern of Dot's
and head consists of a Matrix of Pins of size(5*7, 7*9, 9*7 or 9*9) which comes out to form a
character that is why it is called Dot Matrix Printer.
Advantages

 Inexpensive
 Widely Used
 Other language characters can be printed

Disadvantages

 Slow Speed
 Poor Quality

Daisy Wheel

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

Advantages

 More reliable than DMP's

 Better quality
 The fonts of character can be easily changed.

Disadvantages

 Slower than DMP's

 Noisy
 More expensive than DMP's

Line Printers

Line printers are printers, which print one line at a time.

These are of further two types:

 Drum Printer
 Chain Printer

Drum Printer

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

 Very high

speed Disadvantages

 Very expensive
 Characters fonts cannot be changed

Chain Printer

In this printer, chain of character sets are used so it called Chain Printers. A standard
character set may have 48, 64, 96 characters.

Advantages

 Character fonts can easily be changed.

 Different languages can be used with the same printer.

Disadvantages

 Noisy
 Do not have the ability to print any shape of characters.

Non-impact Printers

The printers that print the characters without striking against the ribbon and onto the paper
are called Non-impact Printers. These printers print a complete page at a time, also called as
Page Printers.

These printers are of two types:

 Laser Printers
 Inkjet Printers

Characteristics of Non-impact Printers:

 Faster than impact printers.

 They are not noisy.
 High quality.
 Support many fonts and different character size.
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.

Advantages

 Very high speed.

 Very high quality output.
 Gives good graphics quality.
 Supports many fonts and different character sizes.

Disadvantage

 Expensive.
 Cannot be used to produce multiple copies of a document in a single printing.

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. Colour printing is also possible. Some models of Inkjet printers can
produce multiple copies of printing also.

Advantages

 High quality printing

 More reliable

Disadvantages

 Expensive as cost per page is high

 Slow as compared to laser printer
PROCESSING DEVICES

Central processing Unit (CPU)

CPU is considered as the brain of the computer. CPU performs all types of data processing
operations. It stores data, intermediate results and instructions (program). It controls the
operations of all parts of computer.

CPU itself has the following three components

 ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit)

 Memory Unit
 Control Unit

Computer - CPU

 CPU is considered as the brain of the computer.

 CPU performs all types of data processing operations.
 It stores data, intermediate results and instructions (program).
 It controls the operation of all parts of computer.

CPU itself has the following three components.

 Memory Or Storage Unit:

 Control Unit
 ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit)

Memory or Storage Unit

This unit can store instructions, data and intermediate results. This unit supplies information to
the other units of the computer when needed. It is also known as internal storage unit or main
memory or primary storage or Random access memory (RAM).

Its size affects speed, power and capability. There are two types of memories in the computer:
Primary memory and secondary memory. Functions of Memory Unit are:

 It stores all the data to be processed and the instructions required for processing.
 It stores intermediate results of processing.
 It stores final results of processing before these results are released to an output device.
 All inputs and outputs are transmitted through main memory.

Control Unit

This unit controls the operations of all parts of computer. It does not carry out any actual
data processing operations.

Functions of this unit are:

  It is responsible for controlling the transfer of data and instructions among other units of
a computer.
 It manages and coordinates all the units of the computer.
 It obtains the instructions from the memory, interprets them and directs the operation
of the computer.
 It communicates with Input/Output devices for transfer of data or results from storage.
 It does not process or store data.

ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit)

This unit consists of two subsections namely:

 Arithmetic section
 Logic Section

Arithmetic section

Function of Arithmetic section is to perform arithmetic operations like addition, subtraction,

multiplication and division. All complex operations are done by making repetitive use of above
operations.

Logic Section

Function of logic section is to perform logic operations such as comparing, selecting,

matching and merging of data.

Computer - Motherboard

The motherboard serves as a single platform to connect all of the parts of a computer together.
A motherboard connects CPU, memory, hard drives, optical drives, video card, sound card and
other ports and expansion cards directly or via cables. It can be considered as the backbone of a
computer.

Features

 Motherboard varies greatly in supporting various types of components.

 Normally, a motherboard supports a single type of CPU and few types of memories.
 Video Cards, Hard disks, Sound Cards have to compatible with motherboard to function
properly.
 Motherboards, cases and power supplies must be compatible to work properly together.