Peripheral Devices

Device Drivers
A program

to tell the system software how to

work with that piece of hardware
Some common device drivers are built in the
system software (Operating System) e.g.
keyboard and mouse drives

Plug-n-Play Devices
Devices

designed such that Windows can

detect them, install and configure the device
driver automatically
For non plug-n-play devices, we have to install
and configure the device driver manually.

Input Devices (1)

Keyboard

P/S2 keyboard
USB keyboard
Wireless keyboard

Input Devices (2)

Pointing

Devices

Mouse, trackball, touch pad, light pen, digitizer

Touch screen

Input Devices (3)

Scanning

devices

Image scanner
Fax machine scan image to bitmap
Bar code scanner scan Universal Product Code
(UPC)
Magnetic ink character scanner (MICR)
Optical character scanner (OCR)
Optical mark scanner (OMR)

Input Devices (4)

Voice

Input Device

Microphone to receive the sound signal

Sound card to convert the sound signal to digital
form
Use speech recognition software to recognize
human speech

Input Devices (5)

Handwriting

Recognition Device

Need handwriting recognition software

Called natural input
Slow inputting speed

Output Devices (1)

Visual

Display Unit (VDU)

Commonly called monitor

common types of monitor

CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitor
High

radiation and bulky

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) monitor

No

radiation and slim

Output Devices (2)

Printer

to produce hard copy

Laser printer

to produce high quality output

resolution up to 2400 dpi (dot per inch)
use carbon toner, usually for black and white
printout, colour is very expensive

Output Devices (3)

Inkjet

printer

produce good quality colour output

resolution up to 1440 dpi
use ink droplets to compose the image
The printer is much cheaper than laser printer but
the ink is very expensive

Output Devices (4)

Dot

matrix printer

Use impact principle

Can print multiple (carbon) copies at a time, usually
use in printing invoices
The ink ribbon is cheap
Poor quality of printout

Output Devices (5)

Plotter

Drawing high quality image, use colour pens, can

draw smooth curves
Can print on large paper size, use roll of paper
To draw posters and maps
Use in CAD (Computer Aided Design)

Output Device (6)

Voice

output devices

Sound card, to convert computer signals to sound

Speakers, to amplify the sound output

Storage Devices (1)

Floppy

Disk (Diskette)

A flexible plastic circular disc

Packed in a plastic square jacket
Formatted to 1.44MB
Divided to many circular tracks
Each track is divided to many sectors
Use magnetic technology to store data 0 or 1
Random access
Slow accessing speed

Storage Devices (2)

Hard

Disk

High storage capacity, over 100 GB

Hard metallic surface
Consists of several metallic disks
Data are stored in cylinder (a deck of tracks)
(see p.86)
Use magnetic technology
Very high access speed
Random access

Storage Device (3)

Optical

disk

CDROM, DVDROM, CDRW, DVDRW

Use optical technology, laser reflection on pits
1 will reflect the laser beam while 0 does not
High storage capacity, 700 MB for a CDROM,
17GB for a DVDROM
Random access
High access speed

Storage Device (4)

Tape

Cheap
Sequential access
Use magnetic technology
Ideal for backup data, we need to backup and restore all
data
High storage capacity
Slow access speed
Group of records are stored in a block
Inter-block gaps are needed for stopping and starting the
read/write head.

Storage Device (5)

Other

Storage devices can be read/write

Removable disks -Zip disk(100/250MB),
superdisk(120MB), Jazz disk(1GB)
MO disk
Flash memory cards compact flash, smart
media and memory stick, commonly used in
digital camera

Network Devices (1)

Network Interface Card (NIC) (LAN card)

Connection between the network and the computer bus

Have built-in transceiver, for data transmitting and receiving
Usually 100 MB/s

Wireless LAN card

Usually 11 MB/s
Work within the distance range, and no blocking in between.

Network Devices (2)

Connectors
RJ-45

For connecting twisted pairs LAN cable

BNC

telephone jack connector

connector

For connecting coaxial cables

Network Device (3)

Terminators

Use in bus network, to prevent signal rebounce and

echo at the ends of bus.

Network Device (4)

Hub

To connect the workstations within a room on same

floor

Switch

To connect the workstations for different floors in a

building, it is faster and more efficient than a Hub.

Router

To connect different LANs together to form a Wide

Area Network (WAN)

Network Device (5)

Repeater

When a network spans a long distance, the signal

weaken, repeater is used to reproduce the signal.

Exchange

To boost the signals along the network path for a

Wide Area Network.

Network Device (6)

Computer

Different computers play different roles on a network

Server

Provide services to other computers connected to

the network, usually have higher processing power
and larger storage capacity.

Workstation

The computers connected to the network but not act

as a server.

Network Device (7) - Servers

File server

Print server

To host a web site and publish web pages on the web,

support HTML, Java script, CGI, PHP and ASP web
languages

Email server

Manage the print jobs from different computers to different

network printers, and manage the print queues.

Web server

control the sharing and access of files over the network,

must have a huge storage capacity.

To store, send and receive emails over the Internet

Internet server

To provide Internet access

Communication Device
Modem

- Modulator-demodulator

It transforms digital signals of computer to analog

signals to be transmitted through telephone lines.
(Modulation)
It also transforms analog signals back to digital
signals for the computer that receives the signals.
(Demodulation)

Data/Signal Rate
Data

Rate

Refer to the no. of bits per second sent

Signaling

Rate (Baud Rate)

Refer to the no. of signals per second sent

Each signal may consists of several bits e.g. 101

Bandwidth

The frequency range of a particular media

is directly proportional to the data rate

Types of network

Client-Server Network

Some computers act as server to provide services to clients

on the network
Server programs are running on the server
Client programs are running on client computers

Peer-to-peer Network

Every computer plays the same role in the network. They

form a workgroup, no server and no client
The security in a peer-to-peer network is low.
It is easy to set up, since no server programs or client
programs need to be run.