Chapter-Hardware

Topic: Input and Output Devices

Input Devices

Keyboard
Optical Mouse
Digital Camera
Microphone
Touch Screen
Scanner
Barcode Scanner
QR Code Scanner
Keyboard

The keyboard is used for manual input of data. When a key

is pressed, it completes a circuit and a signal is sent to the
microprocessor which interprets which key has been
pressed. Each character on a keyboard has an ASCII
value and is converted to digital signal. There are different
types of keyboards are available like-
i) QWERTY Keyboard
ii)Braille Keyboard
iii) Ergonomic Keyboard
iv)Concept keyboard
Mouse:

 It is used as a pointing device

 A mouse can sense its movement across a surface and send data
about its changing position to the computer.
 Traditional mouse contains mechanical ball arrangement
connected to the computer through a USB port.
 Optical mouse uses red LED to detect movement in the x-y direction
 Mice uses either of the above technology but use a wireless
connection to the computer.
 Mouse usually has two buttons together to scroll up/down wheel
Advantages of manual input:
 It is easy and familiar to use
 It is useful for a wide range of task

Disadvantages of manual input:

 Input using mouse and keyboard is slower than using automatic system
 Human user’s can make mistake while entering data
 It can cause the health risk which is known as RSI
 People may get tired if they type for long time
Digital Camera
 It turns light into electronic signals. Reflected light from the object
comes through the aperture which contains lens. The lens focuses
the light onto a sensitive electronic surface which is made of a grid
of tiny sensors. The sensors turn the pattern of lights into electrical
signal
 It contains a microprocessor which automatically performs the
followings-
i) Adjust shutter speed
ii) Operates the flush
iii) Adjust the aperture
iv) Removes red eye
v) Reduces hand shake effect
Microphone
 Sound wave created by our voice carry energy towards the
microphone.
 Inside the microphone, the diaphragm moves back and forth when
the sound waves hit it.
 The coil attached to the diaphragm move back and forth as well.
 The permanent magnet produces a magnetic field that cuts
through the coil. As the coil moves back and forth through the
magnetic field , an electric current flows thorough it.
Touch Screen

 There are three major types of touch screen-

i) Capacitive
ii) Infrared
iii) Resistive
Capacitive
 This is made up of many layers of glass.
 Electric charge is spread across the screen.
 Sensors are used to read the electric field.
 When the top glass layer is touched, the electric current charges and the
coordinates of touch is determined by microprocessor.
Advantages of using capacitive Screen
 Better image clarity than resistive screens in sunlight
 Very durable screens that have high scratch resistance
 It allows multi touch
 It is medium cost technology.

Disadvantages of using capacitive Screen

 Allows only use of bare fingers or a special stylus
 They are sensitive to electromagnetic radiation such as magnetic field and
microwaves
Resistive
 This makes use of an upper layer of polyester and a bottom layer of glass.
 When the top layer is touched, both layers completes the circuit
 Signals are then sent out which are interpreted by a microprocessor and
determine the coordinates of touch by a calculation.
Advantages of using resistive Screen
 Good resistance to dust and water
 Can be used with bare fingers, stylus and gloved hand
 It is relatively inexpensive technologies

Disadvantages of using resistive Screen

 Does not support multi touch facility
 Poor visibility in strong sunlight
 Vulnerable to scratches on the screen
 Low touch sensitivity
 Infrared
 It uses the glass as the screen material. It has an array of sensors in the
form of grid. Infrared rays form a grid across the screen. Infrared ray is
broken by a finger touch. The point of contact is calculated using the
coordinates.
Advantages of using resistive Screen
 Allow multi touch facilities
 Has good screen durability
 The optical system allows the use of bare fingers, gloved fingers or a stylus
for input

Disadvantages of using resistive Screen

 The screen can be sensitive to water or moisture
 It is relatively expensive technology
 Sometimes sensitive to light interference
2D Scanner
 2D scanner used to input hard copy information into an electronic
format which can be understood by a computer.
 When the document is placed on the glass plate in the scanner, a
light moves across the document. Reflected light from the
document is captured using lenses and a series of mirrors. The
focused image falls onto a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) which
produces 2D digital image.
3D Scanner
 3D scanner is used to scan solid objects and produce an electronic
3D image.
 Scanner shines a laser over the surface of a 3D object. The scanner
records measurement of the dimensions of the object. Then the
measurements are converted to digital file and produces a 3D
digital model.
Barcode Scanner
Barcodes are made up of a series of black and white parallel lines of
varying thickness which represents the code for the numbers 0 to 9.
The following sequence shows how a typical barcode
 A barcode reader shines red laser light onto the barcode to be
scanned.
 The light is reflected back off the barcode
 The reflected light is detected by photoelectric cells.
 Different reflection will give different binary values.
 The reflected light generates a pattern which can be interpreted by
microprocessor.
QR code Reader
 QR code is a type of barcode which is made up of a matrix of black
squares on a white background
 QR code is scanned by built in camera in smart phones using an
application
 The three large squares are used to define the alignment,.
 Black squares reflect less light than white squares.
 Each small square is converted to binary values by the application
Advantages of QR codes
 A QR code has a large number of patterns that stores more data than an
ordinary barcode.
 QR codes are easier to read. They don’t need expensive laser scanner like
barcode.
 It is easier to transmit QR code either as text message or image.
 It is also possible to encrypt QR codes which gives them greater protection
than traditional barcodes

Disadvantages of QR codes
 Multiple QR formats are available
 QR code can be used to transmit malicious code- known as attagging
Output Devices
Inkjet Printer
Laser printer
3D printer
Speaker
DLP Projector
LCD Projector
LCD Screen
LED Screen
Actuator
Inkjet Printer
It uses liquid ink. A print head is used to sprays ink onto paper line by line as the
paper advances.
The ink system uses either thermal bubble or piezoelectric technologies.

Detail Steps of how Inkjet printer works

 It has an ink cartridge which contains liquid ink and a print head.
 Print head consists of nozzles used to spray droplets of ink
 It has a stepper motor and belt which moves the print head assembly back
and forth across the page.
 The print head sprays ink onto the paper line by line as the paper
advances.
 The ink system uses either thermal bubble or piezoelectric technologies
Thermal Bubble
A tiny resistor create localised heat which makes the ink vaporise. This
causes the ink to form a tiny bubble which causes some of the ink is
ejected from the print head onto the paper.

Piezoelectric
A crystal is located at the back of the ink reservoir for each nozzle. The
crystal is given a tiny electric charge which makes it vibrate. This
vibration forces ink to be ejected onto the paper
Thermal Bubble

Piezoelectric
Advantages
 High quality of printing so it is very suitable for printing photos.
 Inexpensive to buy the printer
 Relatively quiet in operation compared to dot matrix printer.

Disadvantages
 Ink is expensive to buy and quickly runs out on a large amount of printing.
 Can be noisy in operation compared to laser printer

Uses
To print high quality printing with colour images and text
Laser Printer
 It uses toner(dry powdered ink). It uses static electricity on the print drum
and paper. Dry ink sticks to the paper in only certain areas and is
permanently fixed using fuser.

Steps of how laser printer works

 The printer driver ensures that the data is in a format that the laser
printer can understand.
 Data is sent to the laser printer and stored temporarily in the printer
buffer.
 The printing drum is given a positive charge.
 As the printing drum rotates, a laser scans across it and removes the
positive charge in certain areas.
 The negatively charged area on printing drum match exactly with the
text and images to be printed.
 The printing drum is coated in positively charged toner. Since the
toner is positively charged, it only sticks to the negatively charged
parts of the drum.
 A negatively charged sheet of paper is then rolled over the printing
drum
 The tonner on the printing drum is now transferred to the paper to
reproduce the required text and images
 The paper goes through a fuser which melts the toner so it fixes
permanently to the paper.
Advantages
 Very fast printing and well suited to high volume printing.
 It has very low noise levels.
 Very high quality of printing.

Disadvantages
 Maintaining and running costs can be expensive.
 Produce health hazards such as toner particles in the air

Uses
To print large volume of printing
3D Printer
 3D printers produce actual solid objects.
 It build up objects layer by layer of varying materials such as –
powdered resin, powdered metal, Ceramic powder, etc.
 Some 3D printer uses binder technology which involve use of glue to
form the solid object.
Digital Light Projector (DLP)
 DLP relies on Digital Micro mirror Device(DMD chip) where millions of micro
mirrors are arranged which can switch on or off several thousands times per
second creating various shades of grey. These mirrors can either lift towards
the light source (ON) or away from the light source (OFF) creating a light
and dark pixel.
 A bright white light source passes through a colour filter on its way to DMD
chip.
 Colour filters allow the shades of grey to be converted into colours which
are projected onto a large screen through the projector lens.
Advantages
 Smaller and lighter than LCD Projector
 Higher contrast ratios
 Higher Reliability/Longevity.
 Quietly runs than LCD projector
 They are better suited to dusty or smoky atmospheres than LCD
projector

Disadvantages
 Colour definition is not good as LCD projector
 Sometimes image tends to suffer from shadow when showing a
moving image
Liquid Crystal Display(DLP) Projector
 A beam of white light is sent to a group of Chromatic- Coated mirrors which
reflects light at different wave length corresponding to red, green and blue
light components
 The light components pass through three LCD Screens which are then
recombined using a prism to produce the full colour image.
 Finally the image passes through the projector lens onto a screen.
Advantages
 Produce a sharper image than DLP projectors.
 It has better colour saturation than DLP projectors.
 It is more efficient in their use of energy than DLP as a result it
generates less heat.

Disadvantages
 Contrast ratio is not as good as DLP
 It has a limited life/Longevity is not as good as DLP
Speaker
 The digital data is passed through the a DAC where it is changed into an
electric current.
 Electricity flows into a coil of metal wire, wrapped around a permanent
magnet
 The changing pattern of electricity in the coil creates a magnetic field all
around it which makes the coil move.
 The coil is attached to a big flat disk called diaphragm. As the coil moves, the
diaphragm start vibrating.
 Vibration of diaphragm pushes air particles back and forth and creates sound
waves.
LED Screen
 An LED screen is made up of tiny light emitting diodes (LEDs).Each LED is
either red, green or blue in colour. By varying the electric current sent to
each LED, its brightness can be controlled, producing a vast range of
colours.

LCD Screen
 LCD screens are made up of tiny liquid crystals.
 It consists of a front layer of LCD that makes up the image from a number of
pixels.
 The LCD screen has a backlit using LED/CCFL that shines through the liquid
crystal layer which give it better brightness and contrast.
Backlighting LED have several
advantages over older CCFL
 They reach maximum brightness much faster.
 They give a whiter light making the image more vivid.
 The displays can be much thinner and lighter in weight.
 They consume much less power and therefore also run
much cooler.
 The brighter light improves colour definition.
OLED
 It is made up of millions of tiny organic LED arranged in a grid to make a
screen display. These produce their own light and therefore don’t need
any form of back lighting.

Advantage of OLED
 They allow for very thin screen which are very light weight.
 They produce a much brighter light then LED.
 It does not require any form of back lighting.
 OLEDs have a very large field of view, about 170 degrees.
 The plastic organic layer of an OLED is more flexible than the crystal
structure which allows to bend screens to any shape.
Storage Devices
Classification according to the use

 Primary Memory
i) Random Access Memory (RAM)
ii) Read Only Memory (ROM)
 Secondary Memory
i) Hard Disk Drive(HDD)
ii)Solid State Drive(SSD)
 Offline Storage
i) CD-R, CD-RW
ii) DVD-R, DVD-RW
iii) Blu-Ray Disc
iv) Flash Memories
Classification according to the Read/Write
technologies
 Magnetic Media
i) HDD
ii) Magnetic Tape
 Optical Media
i) CD-R, CD-RW
ii) DVD-R, DVD-RW
iii) DVD-RAM
iv) Blu-Ray Disc
 Solid State Memory
i)Solid State Drive(SSD)
ii)Flash Memories
Primary Memory: It is a part of computer memory which
can be accessed directly by the CPU

Random Access Memory(RAM):

 It is a volatile memory.
 Data can be read and written into frequently
 It is used to store-
i)Currently running operating system's files
ii)Currently running program files
iii)Currently running user's data files
Read Only Memory(ROM):
 It is a non volatile/ permanent memory
 Data can only be read from ROM
 It is used to store BIOS/Boot strap program which is used to startup a
computer.

ROM Family:

 Read Only Memory(ROM)

 Programmable Read Only Memory(PROM)
 Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory(EPROM)
 Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory(EEPROM)
 Secondary and Offline storage

 Secondary (and off-line) storage includes storage devices that are

not directly addressable by the CPU. They are non-volatile devices
that allow data to be stored as long as required by the user. This
type of storage can store more data than primary memory, but
data access time is considerably longer than with RAM or ROM. All
applications, the operating system, device drivers and general files
(for example, documents, photos and music) are stored on
secondary storage.
 Magnetic Media
Hard Disk Drive(HDD):
 It contains a disc called platter. More than one platter also be there
in a single HDD.
 Surface of the platter is divided into track and sector.
 Data are stored on the track and sectors of the surface of the
platter.
 When a file or data is stored on a HDD, the required number of
sectors needed to store the data are allocated.
 An electric motor is used to spin the platter.
 A read/write head is used to read and write data from the platter.
 Two state of magnetism is used to encode 1 or 0.
 Optical Storage
 CDs ,DVDs and Blu-Ray discs are described as optical storage devices.
Laser light is used to read and write data to and from the surface of the
disk.

Compact Disk(CD):
 It contains a single spiral track.
 The track consists of single layer.
 Use red laser to read and write data.
 Creates pits and lands to store 0 and 1.
 Data can only read or write at a time.
 Digital Versatile Disk(DVD):

 It contains a single spiral track.

 The track consists of dual layer.
 Use red laser to read and write data.
 Creates pits and lands to store 0 and 1.
 Data can only read or write at a time.

DVD RAM:

 It contains concentric track.

 The track consists of dual layer.
 Use red laser to read and write data.
 Creates pits and lands to store 0 and 1.
 Data can read and write at a time.
Blu-Ray Disc:

 It contains a single spiral track.

 The track consists of single , dual and triple layer.
 Use blue laser to read and write data.
 Creates pits and lands to store 0 and 1.
 Data can only read or write at a time.
 Solid State Memory
 Solid state storage devices store data by controlling the movement of
electrons within NAND or NOR chips. The data is stored as 0s and 1s in millions of
tiny transistors (at each junction one transistor is called a floating gate and the
other is called a control gate) within the chip.
 The circuit contains array of tiny transistors.
 Flash memories make use of a matrix, at each intersection on the matrix
there is a floating gate and a control gate.
 Tiny transistors are act as memory cell.
 Each transistor consists of two gates-
i) Control gate
ii) Floating gate
 Floating gate and control gate transistors use CMOS (complementary
metal oxide semi-conductor) NAND/NOR technology.
 Initially all the floating gates are empty which is represented as 1
 High voltage is passed to floating gate for tapping some electrons which is
represented as 0
Comparison between SSD and HDD:

 HDD is a magnetic media and SSD is a solid state memory.

 Weight of SSD is lighter than HDD so SSD is more portable.
 Data accessing speed in SSD is faster than HDD.
 SSD is more expensive than HDD.
 HDD consumes more power than SSD as the platter of HDD has to
be rotated.
 SSD is more durable than HDD as it contains no moveable parts.
Virtual Memory
 A computer can address more memory than the amount of memory
available in RAM. This extra memory is actually called virtual memory and it
is a section of a hard disk that's set up to emulate the computer's RAM.
 Operating system uses paging as memory management technique. In
paging, the pages of a program which are required for current processing
is loaded to the RAM.
 If there is not enough space in RAM but a page needs to be loaded
immediately, Operating system transfers some pages to virtual memory.
 Whenever a page from virtual memory is again required for processing, it is
reloaded to the RAM.
 This loading and reloading pages from virtual memory is called swapping.
 Too many swapping can cause disk thrashing.
The main benefits of virtual memory are:
 Programs can be larger than physical memory and still be executed
 There is no need to waste memory with data that isn’t being used (e.g.
during error handling)
 It reduces the need to buy and install more expensive RAM memory
(although as mentioned earlier there are limits to the value of doing this).
 Cloud Storage
Cloud storage is a method of data storage where data is stored on remote
servers. It allows the user to access the data at any time from any place.

 There are three cloud systems-

1) Public cloud: It is a storage environment where the client and cloud storage
provider are different companies.

2) Private cloud: It is a storage environment where the client and cloud storage
provider are integrated and operates as single entity.

3) Hybrid cloud: It is a combination of Private cloud and public cloud. Here

sensitive data are kept in private cloud and less sensitive data are kept in public
cloud.
 Cloud Storage
Cloud storage is a method of data storage where data is stored on remote
servers. It allows the user to access the data at any time from any place.

 There are three cloud systems-

1) Public cloud: It is a storage environment where the client and cloud storage
provider are different companies.

2) Private cloud: It is a storage environment where the client and cloud storage
provider are integrated and operates as single entity.

3) Hybrid cloud: It is a combination of Private cloud and public cloud. Here

sensitive data are kept in private cloud and less sensitive data are kept in public
cloud.
 Benefits of using cloud computing:

 It can be accessed at any time from any device anywhere in the world.

 It provides the user with remote backup of data to aid data loss and disaster recovery.

 It offers a large storage capacity.

 The software provided in cloud computing is well tested

 Drawback of using cloud storage:

 User may have problem accessing their data due to slow/failure of internet
connection

 There is a risk of loosing backup data due to potential failure of cloud storage
company

 There may be concern of data privacy if public cloud has been used.

 It can be expensive if large storage is required.

Network Interface Card(NIC)

 Network interface card (NIC) is a hardware component, typically a

circuit board or chip, which is installed on a computer and used to
connect a computer to a network.

 Every NIC contain a unique MAC address which is given by the

manufacturer.

 NIC works on Link Layer of TCP/IP model.

 It collects data from a computer and send to the transmission

channel.
Media Access Control(MAC) address:
 It is unique identification number which is used to physically identify a device
uniquely.

 It is assigned by the manufacturer of the device.

 It is represented in Hexadecimal number system.

 Example:1C-42-00-F2-91-10

 It contains two information:

i)Manufacturer number(First 6 digits)

ii)Product's Serial Number(Last 6 digits)

 It consists of 48 bits.
IP Address
 It is an unique address that is used to locate a device uniquely from a network.

 Example: 192.120.10.1

 It consists of 32 bits.

 It represent network address and host address

 IPV4 protocol is used to represent this IP address.

 There are 4 units and each unit can maximum 255 in denary.

 There are two types of IP address-

i)Private IP

ii)Public IP

 IP address can be Static or Dynamic

IPV6 addressing format
 It consists of 128 bits
Example:
ABCD:1234:ABCD:1243:ABBC:1244:ABCD:3214
 It is spitted into 8 units and each units consists of 16 bits.
 Leading zero of a unit can be omitted
ABCD:0234:ABCD:1243:00BC:1244:ABCD:3214
can be written as-
ABCD:234:ABCD:1243:BC:1244:ABCD:3214
 :0000:0000 replaced by ::
ABCD:1234:0000:0000:ABBC:1244:ABCD:3214
can be written as:
ABCD:1234::ABBC:1244:ABCD:3214
Valid for 2 or more consecutive zero units but can be done only once in
the address