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
 2 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 telephone jack connector
– For connecting twisted pairs LAN cable
 BNC 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
– control the sharing and access of files over the network,
must have a huge storage capacity.

 Print server
– Manage the print jobs from different computers to different
network printers, and manage the print queues.
 Web 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
– 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.