mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its

supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with
one or more buttons. It sometimes features other elements, such as "wheels", which allow the user to
perform various system-dependent operations, or extra buttons or features that can add more control
or dimensional input. The mouse's motion typically translates into the motion of a cursor on a display,
which allows for fine control of a graphical user interface.

keyboard is a typewriter keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as

mechanical levers or electronic switches. With the decline of punch cards and paper tape, interaction
via teletype-style keyboards became the main input device for computers.

image scanner—often abbreviated to just scanner— is a device that optically scans images, printed
text, handwriting, or an object, and converts it to a digital image. Common examples found in offices
are variations of the desktop (or flatbed) scanner where the document is placed on a glass window for
scanning. Hand-held scanners, where the device is moved by hand, have evolved from text scanning
"wands" to 3D scanners used for industrial design, reverse engineering, test and measurement,
orthotics, gaming and other applications. Mechanically driven scanners that move the document are
typically used for large-format documents, where a flatbed design would be impractical.

barcode reader (or barcode scanner) is an electronic device for reading printed barcodes. Like
a flatbed scanner, it consists of a light source, a lens and a light sensor translating optical impulses
into electrical ones. Additionally, nearly all barcode readers contain decoder circuitry analyzing the
barcode's image data provided by the sensor and sending the barcode's content to the scanner's
output port.

The Optical Mark Reader is a device the "reads" pencil marks on NCS compatible scan
forms such as surveys or test answer forms. If that all seems overly technical to you, just
think of it as the machine that checks multiple choice computer forms. In this document
The Optical Mark Reader will be referred to as the scanner or OMR. The computer test
forms designed for the OMR are known as NCS compatible scan forms. Tests and surveys
completed on these forms are read in by the scanner, checked, and the results are saved
to a file. This data file can be converted into an output file of several different formats,
depending on which type of output you desire.

A monitor or display (sometimes called a visual display unit) is an electronic visual

display for computers. The monitor comprises the display device,circuitry, and an enclosure. The
display device in modern monitors is typically a thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD)
thin panel, while older monitors use a cathode ray tube about as deep as the screen [Link]
computer monitors were used for data processing and television receivers for entertainment;
increasingly computers are being used both for data processing and entertainment and TVs
implement some typical computer functionality. Displays exclusively for data use tend to have an
aspect ratio of 4:3; those used also (or solely) for entertainment are usually 16:9 widescreen,
Sometimes a compromise is used,

A Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally
developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass
data storage CD-ROM, write-once audio and data storage CD-R, rewritable media CD-RW, Video
Compact Discs (VCD), Super Video Compact Discs (SVCD), PhotoCD, PictureCD, CD-i, and
Enhanced CD. Audio CDs and audio CD players have been commercially available since October
1982.

A CD-R (Compact Disc-Recordable) is a variation of the Compact Disc invented by Philips and Sony.
CD-R is a Write Once Read Many (WORM) optical medium, though the whole disk does not have to
be entirely written in the same session.

CD-RW discs require a more sensitive laser optics. Also, CD-RWs cannot be read in some CD-ROM
drives built prior to 1997. This is why CD-ROM drives of the age must bear a "MultiRead" certification
to show compatibility. CD-RW discs need to be blanked before reuse. Different blanking methods can
be used, including "full" blanking in which the entire surface of the disc is cleared, and "fast" blanking
in which only meta-data areas are cleared: PMA, TOC andpregap, comprising a few percent of the
disc. Fast blanking is much quicker, and is usually sufficient to allow rewriting the disc. Full blanking
removes traces of the former data, often for confidentiality. It may be possible to recover data from
full-blanked CD-RWs with specialty data recovery equipment[citation needed]; however, this is generally not
used except by government agencies due to cost
DVD (Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) is a format of optical disc storage medium, with a
greater audio-visual data storage capacity than that of the compact disc of the same dimensions. The
recorded laser wavelength used in the standard DVD is 650 nm, thus, it is read (played back) with a
red laser. Pre-recorded audio- and video-program DVDs are mass-produced with molding machines
that stamp the data onto the disc. Such a disc is a read-only memory disc (DVD-ROM), because data
can only be read (played back) and can neither be erased nor overwritten. Blank, recordable DVDs
(DVD-R and DVD+R) can have data recorded only once, with an optical disc drive DVD recorder, and
then function as a DVD-ROM. Rewritable DVDs (DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM) can be
repeatedly recorded and erased. The DVD format is applied to DVD-Video and DVD-Audio consumer
products, and for recording AVCHD discs. Moreover, when the DVD format solely stores
informational data, it is denoted as a DVD data disc.

Floppy disks are read and written by a floppy disk drive or FDD.[1] Invented by the
American information technology company IBM, floppy disks in 8-inch (200 mm), 5¼-inch (130 mm)
and 3½-inch (90 mm) forms enjoyed three decades as a popular and ubiquitous form of data storage
and exchange, from the mid-1970s well into the 2000s.[2] While floppy disk drives still have some
limited uses, especially with legacy industrial computer equipment, they have now been superseded
by USB flash drives, external hard disk drives, optical discs, memory cards and computer networks.

A hard disk drive[2] (HDD) is a non-volatile, random access device for digital data. It features
rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically
read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the platters.

Introduced by IBM in 1956, hard disk drives have fallen in cost and physical size over the years while
dramatically increasing in capacity. Hard disk drives have been the dominant device for secondary
storage of data in general purpose computers since the early 1960s.[3] They have maintained this
position because advances in their areal recording density have kept pace with the requirements for
secondary storage.[3] Today's HDDs operate on high-speed serial interfaces; i.e., serial ATA (SATA)
or serial attached SCSI (SAS).
The Zip drive is a medium-capacity removable disk storage system that was introduced by Iomega in
late 1994. Originally, Zip disks launched with capacities of 100 MB, but later versions increased this
to first 250 MB and then 750 MB.

Magnetic storage and magnetic recording are terms from engineering referring to
the storage of data on a magnetized medium. Magnetic storage uses different patterns
of magnetization in a magnetizable material to store data and is a form of non-volatile
memory. The information is accessed using one or more read/write heads. As of 2009,
magnetic storage media, primarily hard disks, are widely used to store computer
data as well as audio and video signals. In the field of computing, the term magnetic
storage is preferred and in the field of audio and video production, the termmagnetic
recording is more commonly used. The distinction is less technical and more a matter
of preference. Other examples of magnetic storage media include floppy disks,
magnetic recording tape, and magnetic stripes on credit cards.

Optical storage is a term from engineering referring to the storage of data on an

optically readable medium. Data is recorded by making marks in a pattern that can be
read back with the aid of light, usually a beam of laser light precisely focused on a
spinning disc. An older example, that does not require the use of computers,
is microform. There are other means of optically storing data and new methods are in
development. Optical storage differs from other data storage techniques that make use
of other technologies such as magnetism or semiconductors.
An input device is any peripheral (piece of computer hardware equipment) used to provide data and
control signals to an information processing system (such as a computer). Input and output
devices make up the hardware interface between computer as a scanner or 6DOF controller.

An output device is any piece of computer hardware equipment used to communicate the results
of data processing carried out by an information processing system (such as a computer) to the
outside world.

In computing, input/output, or I/O, refers to the communication between an information processing

system (such as a computer), and the outside world. Inputs are the signals or data sent to the
system, and outputs are the signals or data sent by the system to the outside.