Types Of Peripheral Devices

Define and describe different types of peripheral devices from all the components with examples. The examples should not include only one type of components only. Storage is where you save or keep data, instructions, and information for future use. Home users use storage to save data documents, music, etc. Office or business users use storage to keep, their transaction and other related records. Discuss the various types of storing devices which are available.

Introduction

Information Technology (IT) can be known as being the study, design, development, implementation support and management of any computer based information systems, which particularly related to software applications and computer hardware. Additionally, IT use electronic computers and software to convert, store, protect, process, retrieve with security and transmit any information. In short, everything from data management, networking, engineering computer hardware, software design, database design and management as well as administration of systems is included in the term of IT.

Information Technology is very important and useful in our daily life and in many fields. The 21st century that also known as IT era, further provoked the importance of computer in this world. In previous eras, there are only desktop with the size of monitor that is big, thick, and non-portable, however the 21st century’s computer are designed with more thinner and small size as well as easy carry such as the latest mini notebook.

Besides that, before CD was being invented, diskette was used to store document and data that provide limited space for users to store their documents. However, nowadays many different types of storing devices are being developed, like external hard drives, thumb drive, rewritable CD’s, and so on. These storing devices are able to allow users to store more document and data as well as storing media file, such as songs and videos.

Define Question 1

What are peripheral devices? Peripheral devices are devices that connected to a computer internally, such as CD-ROM or internal modem and external scanner, printer as well as Zip drive. In addition, they can be connected externally, such as keyboard, mouse, printer, and external modem.

Answer for Question 1

There are several types of peripheral devices such as monitor, mouse, keyboard, system unit, webcam, speakers and printer. The detail information of these peripheral devices is explained in the following texts.

Monitor is one type of peripherals device. It is a display device and is a separate peripheral. Some monitors have a tilt-and-swivel base that allows users to change the angle of the screen, which is to minimize neck strain and adjust the brightness or contrast to reduce stare from overhead lightning. Monitor also allowed users to adjust the height and width of images. It is the most important piece of equipment necessary for a user to operate the machine. To further illustrate, the usage of monitor is help in displaying the computer’s user interface and open programs. Other than that, monitor used to interact with the computer by using the keyboard and mouse. Besides that, it was built using the cathode ray tubes (CRTs), which made them heavy and take up a lot of desk space. Comparing to nowadays, monitor that is built using liquid crystal display (LCD) technology, which commonly referred to as flat- panel monitor, produce sharp, flicker- free images and space saving with other words, it have a small footprint.

Mouse, is a pointing device that fits your hand comfortably that act as a pointing device on the computer monitor to point at an object or icon, link, menu and button on the screen, which also called as mouse pointer. In the old days, personal computers used mechanism mouse, with the mouse contain metal or rubber ball on its underside. Besides, the movement of the mouse is depending on the bottom of mouse that contains a mechanism, such as ball or light. Now, users using optical mouse, wireless mouse, and air mouse. The newer type of mouse, called an air mouse, allows users to control slide shows, media players, and objects by moving mouse in determined directions through the air. Air mouse is a motion-sensing mouse which similar as a remote control. Besides, mouse is connecting in several ways, such as with a cable that attached to a serial port, mouse port, or USB port on the system unit. A wireless mouse is using radio waves or infrared light to control its movement and it is a battery-powered device that transmits data using wireless technology.

Next, keyboard is an input device that contains keys for users to press in order to key in data and instructions into a computer. English-language keyboards come complete with the full alphabet and number set, which typically have from 101 to 105 keys. Some of the desktop have additional keys which is a numeric keypad on the right side of the keyboard. Additionally, keyboards often have a WINDOWS key(s) and application key. With pressing the WINDOWS keys, the monitor will display the Windows Start menu, while pressing the APPLICATION key will display an item’s shortcut menu. Most of today’s desktop computer keyboards are enhanced keyboards that have twelve or more function keys. It also has a set of arrow, ALT keys, and CTRL keys. Besides, there are also function keys, labeled with the letter F followed by a number, are special keys programmed to issue command to a computer. The command is associated with a function keys may vary, and it is depending on the program with which users are interacting. Furthermore, keyboard is connected either through a hard wire or via a USB adapter. Modern keyboards also come equipped with special buttons located outside the normal keys that control volume, email function, and the computer’s main media player.

Other than that, printer act as an output device that produces text and graphics on a physical medium such as paper or transparency film. Printed information or hard copy exists physically and is a permanent form of output compared with soft copy which is presented on a display device. The types of printer can be categories as impact and nonimpact. An impact printer striking a mechanism against an inked ribbon on a piece of paper that physically contacts the paper to form graphics and characters. Two types of impact printers which commonly used are dot-matrix printers and line printers. Printer which produces printed images while tiny wire pins on a print head mechanism strike an inked ribbon, then, it creates dots when the ribbon presses against the paper is known as a dot-matrix printers. A line printer is a high speed printer often connected to a network, server, and mainframe. On the other hand, graphics and characters which form from nonimpact printer on a piece of paper are without striking the paper. Nonimpact printers, such as ink- jet printers is commonly used, which spraying tiny drops of liquid ink onto a piece of paper, while laser printer use a laser beam reflected from a mirror to attract ink (called toner) to selected paper areas as a sheet rolls over a drum.

The system unit is a case that contains electronic components of the computer which is used to process data. The case of system unit, sometimes called the chassis, is made of plastic or metal. Moreover, the case is used to protect the internal electronic components from damage. On desktop personal computers, the part which includes in the system unit is the electronic components and most storages devices. It also include motherboard, random access memory (RAM), central processing unit (CPU), and others components. For an example, many electronic components are attached to the motherboard because it is the main circuit board of the system unit. While all the basic instructions that operate a computer are carry and interpret by the CPU.

A speaker receives audio input from a device such as computer or an audio receiver. Speakers are one of the most common output device used with computer systems. Its transducers convert electromagnetic waves into sound waves. This input may be either in analog or digital form. Analog speakers simply amplify the analog electromagnetic waves into sound waves. (A speaker system’s ability to accurately reproduce sound frequencies is a good indicator of flow clear the audio will be). The sound produced by speakers is defined by frequency and amplitude. Speakers typically come in pairs, which allow them to produce stereo sound. This means the left and right speakers transmit audio on two completely separate channels. By using two speakers, music sounds much more natural since our eras are used to hear sounds from the left and right at the same time. Moreover, high-fidelity stereo sound is becoming more important as computer and communications technologies continue to merge.

Last but not least, a Web cam, also called a PC video camera, is a type of digital video camera that enables a home or small business user to capture video and still images. It also can add live images to instant messages. The term webcam is a combination of “Web” and “video camera”. In additions, Webcams have the ability to broadcast live images over the Internet, make video telephone calls, or chat rooms. During a video telephone call, both parties can see each other as they communicate over the Internet. Webcams are connected through a hard wire or through a wireless connection via a USB adapter. In some modern laptop and netbook computers, small webcams are built on the top of the screen. Webcams can be also used for video chat sessions with other user. Instead of broadcasting the video on the Web, users can set up a video chat session with one or more friends and have a conversation with live audio and video. Examples of video conferencing software included CUworld, Live Meeting, and WebEx.

Define Question 2

Storage device is a device which allows users to save and store their data and files permanently and can be delete if necessary. A computer locates an operating system in storage and usually loads into memory (RAM), and hard disk. When a user key in a command to start application software, such as a Web browser or a word processing program, the operating system will locates the program in storage, such as on a CD, DVD, and hard disk. Other than programs, users also store a variety of information and data on mainframe computers, notebook computer, desktop computer, smart phones, and Tablet PCs.

Answer for Question 2

There are several types of storing devices which are available such as primary storage, secondary storage, hard disks, external hard drives, USB flash drives, smart cards, compact disc re-writable (CD-RW), and online storage.

Primary storage is also known as memory, main memory, internal memory, or RAM, which is for random access memory. It is working storage that holds data for processing, instructions (the program) for processing the data, and processed data (the information) that is waiting to be sent to an output. Primary’s storage is in effect the computer’s short term capacity. It determining the total size of the program and data files and it can work on at any given moment. Besides, primary storage, which is obtained on RAM chips, is also temporary. To further illustrate, once the power to the computer is turned off, all the data and programs within memory will vanish.

On the other hand, secondary storage consists of devices that store data and programs permanently on disk or tape. A storage medium, also called secondary storage, is the physical material on which a computer keeps information, instructions, and data. Secondary storage is nonvolatile, which means data and programs are permanent, or remain still as a whole when the power is turned off.

A hard disk is a storage device that contains one or more circular, inflexible platters that magnetically store information, instructions, and data. Home users used hard disks to store music, digital photos, videos, e-mail messages, presentations, web pages, databases, spreadsheets, and documents. Current personal computer hard disks have storage capacities from 160GB to 1 TB and more. The system unit on most notebook and desktop computer contains at least one hard disk. Hard disk is read and writes storage media that users can write and read on hard disks at any number of times.

An external hard drives is separate free-standing hard disks. It connects with a FireWire port or USB port on the system unit. USB hard drives commonly use the USB 2.0 interface because it supports data transfer rates up to 480 Mbps. USB 1.1 only supports transfers which up to 12 Mbps. It would make the hard drive seem slow to even the most patient users. External hard drives are exactly like the hard drive on any computer, except they are outside of the computer. The external hard drives can be daisy chained which means they can be connected one after the other and be used at the same time. Therefore, this allows for virtually unlimited amounts storage. Firewire drives may use either Firewire 400 or Firewire 800, which support data transfer rates that up to 400 and 800 Mbps respectively. External hard drives are a great backup solution because they can store an exact copy of another hard drive and can be stored in a safe location.

A USB flash drives also known as thumb drives or pen drive, is a flash memory storage device that plugs in a USB port on a mobile device or computer. With a USB flash drive, user easily transfers music, picture, document, and video from one computer to another. USB flash drive is the premiere way store data in a compact and portable fashion. Early flash drives could store only a few megabytes of data, but modern flash drives can store several gigabytes of information. Current USB flash drive has storage capacities ranging from 256 MB to 64 GB and data transfers rates of around 12 MBps. It is a small device with large storage capacities. Therefore, flash drives have replaced most of the previous portable data storage mediums such as removable hard disks that is Zip disks and floppy disks. In additions, flash drive do not require a special disk drive to be used but they can be used on nearly all modern computer with a USB port.

A smart card is a card that is similar with the size to an ATM card or credit card. When users insert the smart card in a specialized card reader, the information on the smart card can be read and being updated when necessary. Smart card stores data in a thin microprocessor embedded in the card. Uses of smart cards include storing vaccination data, medical records, identities information, and other health care information. Besides that, smart card even can store a prepaid amount of money, such as for student purchases on campus, tracking information such as customers’ purchases or employee attendance, and authenticating users such as for building access or Internet purchases.

CD-RW (Compact Disc Rewritable) is a blank CD that can be written to a CD burner. CD-RW allows users to write and rewrite information, instructions, and data. The document burned on a CD-RW can be erased but it cannot be changed. Many personal computers today include a CD-RW drive as a standard feature so that users can burn their own discs. The process of writing on an optical disc is called burning. To write on a CD-RW disc, users must have CD-RW drive and CD-RW software. Furthermore, CD-RW disc can create audio CDs and use it as a backup. Users can save and record their own music on a CD as well as save their document as a backup.

Online storage is a service on the Web that provides hard disks storage to computer users. It is for free or for a minimal monthly fee. Online storage allows users to store large video, audio, and graphic files on an Internet hard disk instantaneously, instead of spending time downloading to a local hard disk. Moreover, users can view time-critical data and images immediately while away from main office or location. As an example, doctors can view x-ray images from another office, home, hospital, or while on vacation.

Conclusion and Recommendation

In conclusion, peripheral devices are very important for us as a user, because it bring a lot advantage for us such as save our time, bring us more convenience, work faster, and others. For an example, with the latest peripheral device like mobile printer, it is very light and small, it allows users to print out their document at any places and any time, even can connect to smart phone.

Storage holds information, instructions and data, which includes music, videos, pictures and documents for future use. Users depend on storage device to provide access to their storage media for years and decades to come. Storage media covered, external, internal and removable hard disks, floppy disks, CD-ROMs, smart card, USB flash drives, flash memory card and so on.

Information Technology (IT) becomes very important and useful in many fields, especially in business field. With IT, we can communicate with each other in any places and even allow us to do transaction online with other companies in different country. Moreover, with the help of IT, it will improve the development of country. However, there are also had some users which misused it, such as stealing information and data without owner permission. In this case, governments have to enforce the rule of using IT, so that the percentage of cybercrimes can be reduced.