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Input Devices:
An input device provides a way to get data into the computer. The oldest and most common input
device is a keyboard. A desktop PC has an external keyboard, while a notebook PC has a built-in keyboard.
Tablets and smartphones have a software-based keyboard that pops up on screen when needed.
Computers that use a graphical interface usually employ a pointing device. The pointing device moves on-
screen pointer (usually an arrow) to align with objects on-screen, and then the user presses a button on the
pointing device to do something to the pointed at object. A mouse is the most common pointing device, but
there are many other types too, such as track balls, touchpads, touch-sensitive screens.
In computing, an input device is a piece of computer hardware equipment used to provide data and control
signals to an information processing system such as a computer or information appliance. Examples of input
devices include keyboards, mouse, scanners, digital cameras and joysticks.
Input devices can be categorized based on:

 modality of input (e.g. mechanical motion, audio, visual, etc.)

 whether the input is discrete (e.g. pressing of key) or continuous (e.g. a mouse's position, though
digitized into a discrete quantity, is fast enough to be considered continuous)
 the number of degrees of freedom involved (e.g. two-dimensional traditional mice, or three-dimensional
navigators designed for CAD applications)
Pointing devices, which are input devices used to specify a position in space, can further be classified
according to:

 Whether the input is direct or indirect. With direct input, the input space coincides with the display
space, i.e. pointing is done in the space where visual feedback or the pointer
appears. Touchscreens and light pens involve direct input. Examples involving indirect input include the
mouse and trackball.
 Whether the positional information is absolute (e.g. on a touch screen) or relative (e.g. with a mouse that
can be lifted and repositioned)
Direct input is almost necessarily absolute, but indirect input may be either absolute or relative. For
example, digitizing graphics tablets that do not have an embedded screen involve indirect input and sense
absolute positions and are often run in an absolute input mode, but they may also be set up to simulate a
relative input mode like that of a touchpad, where the stylus or puck can be lifted and repositioned.

Keyboard:

'Keyboards' are a human interface device which is

represented as a layout of buttons. Each button, or key, can
be used to either input a linguistic character to a computer, or to call upon a particular function of the computer
(the keys are assigned for definite commands which is processed by the CU (Control Unit -- a part of CPU).
They act as the main text entry interface for most users. Traditional keyboards use spring-based buttons, though
newer variations employ virtual keys, or even projected keyboards. It is typewriter like device composed of
a matrix of switches.
Examples of types of keyboards include:

 Keyer
 Keyboard
 Lighted Program Function Keyboard (LPFK)

Using A Virtual Keyboard:

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Devices that don’t have physical keyboards, like tablets and smartphones use a virtual keyboard,
which is a software replica of a keyboard that pops up on the touch screen. Even if you have a regular
keyboard, you can still try out of virtual keyboard in windows if you like. Follow these steps to use the
virtual keyboard in window 7:

 Click the start button and type key and then click on screen keyboard. A window appears showing a virtual
keyboard.
 Open an application in which you can type text, such as Notepad. To open Notepad , click the start button,
type notepad into the search field, and then click Notepad.
 Experiment with the keyboard by clicking keys to type the letters.
 When you are finished, click the close button in the upper left corner of the On-Screen keyboard window.
 Close the application you open in step 2 without saving your changes.

Pointing device:
A pointing device is a peace of hardware that un ables you to move an on-screen pointer in a
graphical user interface like microsoft windows. A mouse is the most common pointing device. It is a palm-
sized object that you move across a falt surface to move the pointer on the display. A mouse has one or more
buttons on it; you press the buttons to act upon whatever the pointer is pointing.

`
Main article:
Pointing devices are the most commonly used input devices today. A pointing device is any human
interface device that allows a user to input spatial data to a computer. In the case of mouse and touchpads,
this is usually achieved by detecting movement across a physical surface. Analog devices, such as 3D
mice, joysticks, or pointing sticks, function by reporting their angle of deflection. Movements of the
pointing device are echoed on the screen by movements of the pointer, creating a simple, intuitive way to
navigate a computer's graphical user interface (GUI).
Examples of types of pointing devices include:

 mouse
 touchpad
 pointing stick
 touchscreen
 trackball
Composite Devices:
Input devices, such as buttons and joysticks, can be combined on a single physical device that could be
thought of as a composite device. Many gaming devices have controllers like this. Technically mice are
composite devices, as they both track movement and provide buttons for clicking, but composite devices are
generally considered to have more than two different forms of input.
Examples of types of composite devices include:
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 Joystick controller
 Gamepad (or joypad)
 Paddle (game controller)
 Jog dial/shuttle (or knob)
 Wii Remote

Video input devices

Microsoft Kinect sensor seen here on a TV, works by detecting human motion visually
Video input devices are used to digitize images or video from the outside world into the computer. The
information can be stored in a multitude of formats depending on the user's requirement.
Examples of types of video input devices include:

 Digital camera
 Digital camcorder
 Portable media player
 Webcam
 Microsoft Kinect Sensor
 Image scanner
 Fingerprint scanner
 Barcode reader
 3D scanner
 Laser rangefinder
 Eye gaze tracker
Examples of medical video input devices include:

 Computed tomography
 Magnetic resonance imaging
 Positron emission tomography
 Medical ultrasonography

Audio input devices

Audio input devices are used to capture sound. In some cases, an audio output device can be used as an input
device, in order to capture produced sound. Audio input devices allow a user to send audio signals to a
computer for processing, recording, or carrying out commands. Devices such as microphones allow users to
speak to the computer in order to record a voice message or navigate software. Aside from recording, audio
input devices are also used with speech recognition software.

Output Devices:
Information comes out of a computer through an output device such as a monitor. When you move
the mouse or type a character on a keyboard, you see the results instantly on the monitor. The monitor helps
you communicate with the operating system; without the monitor, you wouldn’t know if the OS had
received and understood your instructions or if the application had accepted the data you input. Besides
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monitors, other output devices include printers (for producing hard copy-output) ang speakers (for providing
audio feedback).

Display devices:
A display device is an output device that visually conveys text, graphics, and video information. Information
shown on a display device is called soft copy because the information exists electronically and is displayed
for a temporary period of time. Display devices include CRT monitors, LCD monitors and displays, gas
plasma monitors, and televisions.
CPT Hardware-Input Output
Inputs are the signals or data received by the system, and outputs are the signals or data sent from it.
There are many input and output devices such as multifunction printers and computer-based navigation
systems that are used for specialized or unique applications. In computing, input/output refers to the
communication between an information processing system and the outside world. Inputs are the signals or
data received by the system, and outputs are the signals or data sent from it.

Types of Output:
Some types of output are text, graphics, tactile, audio, and video. Text consists of characters that are
used to create words, sentences, and paragraphs. Graphics are digital representations of non-text information
such as drawings, charts, photographs, and animation . Tactile output such as raised line drawings may be
useful for some individuals who are blind. Audio is music, speech, or any other sound. Video consists of
images played back at speeds to provide the appearance of full motion.

A digital image is a numeric representation of an image stored on a computer. They don't have any physical
size until they are displayed on a screen or printed on paper. Until that point, they are just a collection of
numbers on the computer's hard drive that describe the individual elements of a picture and how they are
arranged. Some computers come with built-in graphics capability of . Others need a device, called a graphics
card or graphics adapter board, that has to be added. Unless a computer has graphics capability built into the
motherboard, that translation takes place on the graphics card. Depending on whether the image resolution is
fixed, it may be of vector or raster type. Without qualifications, the term "digital image" usually refers to
raster images also called bitmap images. Raster images that are composed of pixels and is suited for photo-
realistic images. Vector images which are composed of lines and co-ordinates rather than dots and is more
suited to line art, graphs or fonts. To make a 3-D image, the graphics card first creates a wire frame out of
straight lines. Then, it rasterizes the image (fills in the remaining pixels). It also adds lighting, texture and
color.

Tactile:
Haptic technology is a tactile feedback technology which takes advantage of the sense of touch by
applying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user. Several printers and wax jet printers have the capability
of producing raised line drawings. There are also handheld devices that use an array of vibrating pins to
present a tactile outline of the characters or text under the viewing window of the device.

Audio:
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Speech output systems can be used to read screen text to computer users. Special software programs called
screen readers attempt to identify and interpret what is being displayed on the screen and speech
synthesizers convert data to vocalized sounds or text.[6] Also it is used to produce music, speech or other
sounds.
Examples:
These examples of output devices also include input/output devices. Printers and visual displays are the most
common type of output device for interfacing to people, but voice is becoming increasingly available
 Speakers
 Headphones
 Screen (Monitor)
 Printer
 Punched card input/output

Storage Devices:
Storage devices unable software and data to be preserved and reused. Storage can be either
removeable or non-removeable. The most common type of storage is an internal hard drive, which is a
sealed metal box inside the system unit. Hard drives are usually internal, making them non-removeable.
Some hard drives are removeable, though: external hard drives easily connect to and disconnect from a port
on the outside of the system unit. Other removeable storage devices include USB FLASH DRIVE and
OPTICAL DISKS.

Functionality:
Without a significant amount of memory, a computer would merely be able to perform fixed operations and
immediately output the result. It would have to be reconfigured to change its behavior. This is acceptable for
devices such as desk calculators, digital signal processors, and other specialized devices. Von Neumann
machines differ in having a memory in which they store their operating instructions and data. Such
computers are more versatile in that they do not need to have their hardware reconfigured for each new
program, but can simply be reprogrammed with new in-memory instructions; they also tend to be simpler to
design, in that a relatively simple processor may keep state between successive computations to build up
complex procedural results. Most modern computers are von Neumann machines.

Data organization and representation:

A modern digital computer represents data using the binary numeral system. Text, numbers, pictures, audio,
and nearly any other form of information can be converted into a string of bits, or binary digits, each of
which has a value of 1 or 0. The most common unit of storage is the byte, equal to 8 bits. A piece of
information can be handled by any computer or device whose storage space is large enough to accommodate
the binary representation of the piece of information, or simply data. For example, the complete works of
Shakespeare, about 1250 pages in print, can be stored in about five megabytes (40 million bits) with one
byte per character.
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Data are encoded by assigning a bit pattern to each character, digit, or multimedia object. Many standards
exist for encoding (e.g., character encodings like ASCII, image encodings like JPEG, video encodings like
MPEG-4).

By adding bits to each encoded unit, redundancy allows the computer to both detect errors in coded data and
correct them based on mathematical algorithms. Errors generally occur in low probabilities due to random
bit value flipping, or "physical bit fatigue", loss of the physical bit in storage of its ability to maintain a
distinguishable value (0 or 1), or due to errors in inter or intra-computer communication. A random bit flip
(e.g., due to random radiation) is typically corrected upon detection. A bit, or a group of malfunctioning
physical bits (not always the specific defective bit is known; group definition depends on specific storage
device) is typically automatically fenced-out, taken out of use by the device, and replaced with another
functioning equivalent group in the device, where the corrected bit values are restored (if possible). The
cyclic redundancy check (CRC) method is typically used in communications and storage for error detection.
A detected error is then retried.

Data compression methods allow in many cases (such as a database) to represent a string of bits by a shorter
bit string ("compress") and reconstruct the original string ("decompress") when needed. This utilizes
substantially less storage (tens of percents) for many types of data at the cost of more computation
(compress and decompress when needed). Analysis of trade-off between storage cost saving and costs of
related computations and possible delays in data availability is done before deciding whether to keep certain
data compressed or not.

For security reasons certain types of data (e.g., credit-card information) may be kept encrypted in storage to
prevent the possibility of unauthorized information reconstruction from chunks of storage snapshots.

Primary storage:
Main article:
Primary storage (also known as main memory or internal memory), often referred to simply as memory, is
the only one directly accessible to the CPU. The CPU continuously reads instructions stored there and
executes them as required. Any data actively operated on is also stored there in uniform manner.

Early computers used delay lines, Williams tubes, or rotating magnetic drums as primary storage. By 1954,
those unreliable methods were mostly replaced by magnetic core memory. Core memory remained dominant
until the 1970s, when advances in integrated circuit technology allowed semiconductor memory to become
economically competitive.

This led to modern random-access memory (RAM). It is small-sized, light, but quite expensive at the same
time. (The particular types of RAM used for primary storage are also volatile, i.e. they lose the information
when not powered).
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As shown in the diagram, traditionally there are two more sub-layers of the primary storage, besides main
large-capacity RAM:

Processor registers are located inside the processor. Each register typically holds a word of data (often 32 or
64 bits). CPU instructions instruct the arithmetic logic unit to perform various calculations or other
operations on this data (or with the help of it). Registers are the fastest of all forms of computer data storage
.
Processor cache is an intermediate stage between ultra-fast registers and much slower main memory. It was
introduced solely to improve the performance of computers. Most actively used information in the main
memory is just duplicated in the cache memory, which is faster, but of much lesser capacity. On the other
hand, main memory is much slower, but has a much greater storage capacity than processor registers. Multi-
level hierarchical cache setup is also commonly used—primary cache being smallest, fastest and located
inside the processor; secondary cache being somewhat larger and slower.
Main memory is directly or indirectly connected to the central processing unit via a memory bus. It is
actually two buses (not on the diagram): an address bus and a data bus. The CPU firstly sends a number
through an address bus, a number called memory address, that indicates the desired location of data. Then it
reads or writes the data in the memory cells using the data bus. Additionally, a memory management unit
(MMU) is a small device between CPU and RAM recalculating the actual memory address, for example to
provide an abstraction of virtual memory or other tasks.

As the RAM types used for primary storage are volatile (uninitialized at start up), a computer containing
only such storage would not have a source to read instructions from, in order to start the computer. Hence,
non-volatile primary storage containing a small startup program (BIOS) is used to bootstrap the computer,
that is, to read a larger program from non-volatile secondary storage to RAM and start to execute it. A non-
volatile technology used for this purpose is called ROM, for read-only memory (the terminology may be
somewhat confusing as most ROM types are also capable of random access).

Many types of "ROM" are not literally read only, as updates to them are possible; however it is slow and
memory must be erased in large portions before it can be re-written. Some embedded systems run programs
directly from ROM (or similar), because such programs are rarely changed. Standard computers do not store
non-rudimentary programs in ROM, and rather, use large capacities of secondary storage, which is non-
volatile as well, and not as costly.

Secondary storage:
A hard disk drive with protective cover removed
Main article: Auxiliary memory
Secondary storage (also known as external memory or auxiliary storage), differs from primary storage in
that it is not directly accessible by the CPU. The computer usually uses its input/output channels to access
secondary storage and transfers the desired data using intermediate area in primary storage. Secondary
storage does not lose the data when the device is powered down—it is non-volatile. Per unit, it is typically
also two orders of magnitude less expensive than primary storage. Modern computer systems typically have
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two orders of magnitude more secondary storage than primary storage and data are kept for a longer time
there.

In modern computers, hard disk drives are usually used as secondary storage. The time taken to access a
given byte of information stored on a hard disk is typically a few thousandths of a second, or milliseconds.
By contrast, the time taken to access a given byte of information stored in random-access memory is
measured in billionths of a second, or nanoseconds. This illustrates the significant access-time difference
which distinguishes solid-state memory from rotating magnetic storage devices: hard disks are typically
about a million times slower than memory. Rotating optical storage devices, such as CD and DVD drives,
have even longer access times. With disk drives, once the disk read/write head reaches the proper placement
and the data of interest rotates under it, subsequent data on the track are very fast to access. To reduce the
seek time and rotational latency, data are transferred to and from disks in large contiguous blocks.

Characteristics of storage:

A 1 GB DDR RAM module:

Storage technologies at all levels of the storage hierarchy can be differentiated by evaluating certain core
characteristics as well as measuring characteristics specific to a particular implementation. These core
characteristics are volatility, mutability, accessibility, and addressability. For any particular implementation
of any storage technology, the characteristics worth measuring are capacity and performance.

Volatility:

Non-volatile memory retains the stored information even if not constantly supplied with electric power. It is
suitable for long-term storage of information. Volatile memory requires constant power to maintain the
stored information. The fastest memory technologies are volatile ones, although that is not a universal rule.
Since the primary storage is required to be very fast, it predominantly uses volatile memory.

Dynamic random-access memory is a form of volatile memory that also requires the stored information to be
periodically reread and rewritten, or refreshed, otherwise it would vanish. Static random-access memory is a
form of volatile memory similar to DRAM with the exception that it never needs to be refreshed as long as
power is applied; it loses its content when the power supply is lost.

An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) can be used to give a computer a brief window of time to move
information from primary volatile storage into non-volatile storage before the batteries are exhausted. Some
systems, for example EMC Symmetrix, have integrated batteries that maintain volatile storage for several
minutes.

Mutability:
Allows information to be overwritten at any time. A computer without some amount of read/write storage
for primary storage purposes would be useless for many tasks. Modern computers typically use read/write
storage also for secondary storage.
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Read only storage:

Retains the information stored at the time of manufacture, and write once storage (write once read many)
allows the information to be written only once at some point after manufacture. These are called immutable
storage. Immutable storage is used for tertiary and off-line storage. Examples include CD-ROM and CD-R.
Slow write, fast read storage
Read/write storage which allows information to be overwritten multiple times, but with the write operation
being much slower than the read operation. Examples include CD-RW and swayne memory

Accessibility
Random access
Any location in storage can be accessed at any moment in approximately the same amount of time. Such
characteristic is well suited for primary and secondary storage. Most semiconductor memories and disk
drives provide random access.

Sequential access:
The accessing of pieces of information will be in a serial order, one after the other; therefore the time to
access a particular piece of information depends upon which piece of information was last accessed. Such
characteristic is typical of off-line storage.

Basics Of Operating System:

An operating system is the most important software that runs on a computer. It manages the computer's
memory and processes, as well as all of its software and hardware. It also allows you to communicate with
the computer without knowing how to speak the computer's language. Without an operating system, a
computer is useless.

Types of operating systems:

Operating systems usually come pre-loaded on any computer you buy. Most people use the operating system
that comes with their computer, but it's possible to upgrade or even change operating systems. The three
most common operating systems for personal computers are Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
Modern operating systems use a graphical user interface, or GUI (pronounced gooey). A GUI lets you use
your mouse to click icons, buttons, and menus, and everything is clearly displayed on the screen using a
combination of graphics and text.

Microsoft Windows
Microsoft created the Windows operating system in the mid-1980s. Over the years, there have been many
different versions of Windows, but the most recent ones are Windows 10 (released in 2015), Windows 8
(2012), Windows 7 (2009), and Windows Vista (2007). Windows comes pre-loaded on most new PCs,
which helps to make it the most popular operating system in the world.
Mac OS X
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Mac OS is a line of operating systems created by Apple. It comes preloaded on all new Macintosh
computers, or Macs. All of the recent versions are known as OS X (pronounced O-S Ten), and the specific
versions include El Capitan (released in 2015), Yosemite (2014), Mavericks (2013), Mountain Lion (2012),
and Lion (2011).

According to Stat Counter Global Stats, Mac OS X users account for less than 10% of global operating
systems—much lower than the percentage of Windows users (more than 80%). One reason for this is that
Apple computers tend to be more expensive. However, many people do prefer the look and feel of Mac OS
X over Windows.

Linux:
Linux (pronounced LINN-ux ) is a family of open-source operating systems, which means they can be
modified and distributed by anyone around the world. This is different from proprietary software like
Windows, which can only be modified by the company that owns it. The advantages of Linux are that it is
free, and there are many different distributions—or versions—you can choose from.

According to Stat Counter Global Stats, Linux users account for less than 2% of global operating systems.
However, most servers run Linux because it's relatively easy to customize.