Input Devices

Input device: Devices that enable the user to enter data as

instruction into the computer for processing are called input
devices. It is used to supply data or information to a computer.
The most widely used input devices of the computer system:
keyboard and mouse.
Other examples: scanner, touch pad, light pen, tablet, digital
camera and joystick
 Input Devices

Scanner

Joy Stick
Touch Screen

Tablet

Light Pen Touch Pad

 Keyboard
 Keyboard was the first input device to be used with computers
and it is still the major and most widely used among all the
input devices.
 It is the primary input device for entering text and numbers. It
is an arrangement of keys on a board in an organized way– this
is why it is called keyboard.
 A standard keyboard includes about 100 keys and each key
sends a different signal to the CPU.
 Keyboard includes the following types of keys: alphabetic keys,
numerical keys, function keys, cursor movement(arrow) keys,
modifier keys, scroll keys, punctuation mark keys and other
special purpose keys.
 Standard Keyboard Layout

• A standard computer keyboard has about 110 keys.

• Most keyboards use the QWERTY layout, named for the

first six keys in the top row of letters.

• Can produce all characters in the common character sets

such as ASCII.
 Standard Keyboard Layout

Most keyboards have keys arranged in five

groups:
1. Alphanumeric keys
2. Numeric keypad

3. Function keys

4. Modifier keys

5. Cursor-movement keys
 Different types of keys
 Alphanumeric keys: alphanumeric keys composed of
alphabetic keys and number keys with a few keys(TAB, CAPS
LOCK, BACKSPACE, ENTER).
 Modifier keys: The SHIFT, ALT(alternate) and CLTR(control)
keys are called modifier keys as they modify the input of other
keys. In other words, if a modifier key is held down while
pressing another key, then the operation or action of the second
key is changed in some way.
 For example if the key “c” is pressed it will simply type a letter
“c”(small c). But if the key “c” is pressed with the modifier key
“CLTR” it will copy something. Again if key “c” is pressed with
the modifier key “SHIFT” then it will type a letter “C” (Capital C).
 Different types of keys
 Function keys: F1 to F12 these12 keys are called function keys.
They are used to perform special types of operation for the user.
Most IBM compatible keyboards have 12 function keys.
 Though F1 through F12 have some default primary and
secondary features, they can be used well in combination with
keys like Ctrl and Alt.
 F1: open help window
 F2: used to rename a file or folder. Alt + Ctrl + F2 opens the
Documents Library while on MS Office suite
 F3: used to find something. Shift + F3 toggles between capitalizing
each word, lower case and upper case for selected text on MS Word
 F4: Alt + F4 closes the current program. If no program is running
then it launches the Shutdown dialog box
 F5: used to refresh action. While using PowerPoint it is used to
start a slide show. Opens Find, Replace, Go to dialog on MS Office
programs.
 F6: Focuses on the address bar on most browsers
 F7: Could not figure out anything for Windows. Turns on Caret
browsing on Mozilla Firefox. This feature places a moveable cursor
in web pages, allowing you to select text with the keyboard.
 F8: Enters the Windows Start Menu (commonly used to launch the
safe mode) if pressed during boot process
 F9: Generally, compiles and runs the code in combination with
Ctrl key.
 F10: Shows the Menu bar in Firefox and IE
 F11: Opens full screen mode in Windows Explorer and all
browsers
 F12: Opens Save As window on MS Office. Ctrl + Shift + F12 is
equivalent to Ctrl + P on MS Office
 Different types of keys
 Cursor movement keys(arrow keys): most standard
keyboards include a set of cursor movement keys, which enable
an user to move around the screen without using a mouse.
 Special purpose keys: IBM compatible keyboards include eight
special purpose keys, each of which performs a unique function.
These keys are ESC, PRINT SCREEN, SCROLL LOCK, PAUSE,
INSERT, DELETE, WINDOWS KEY(start key), MENU
KEY(shortcut key)
Keyboard Working Principle

When you press a key:

• The keyboard controller detects the keystroke.

• The controller places a scan code in the

keyboard buffer, indicating which key was
pressed.

• The keyboard sends the computer an interrupt

request, telling the CPU to accept the keystroke.
1. A key is pressed on the keyboard
How the computer accepts input
from keyboard
4. The system software
responds to the interrupt
by reading the scan code
from the keyboard buffer

Keyboard
Keyboard Buffer System Software
Controller

2. The keyboard 3. The keyboard

controller sends the scan controller sends an
code for the key to the interrupt request to the
keyboard buffer system software

5. The system software passes

the scan code to the CPU
 The most common keyboard connectors are:

4-pin USB connector

6-pin IBM PS/2 mini-DIN connector

5-pin DIN (Deustche Industrie Norm) connector

Capacitive Key Switch
 Types of keyboard
 Keyboards can be classified in many ways. One efficient way is
to classify them according to their key arrangements. But they
can be classified in many more different categories depending
on types of computer connector, size, number of keys etc.
 Here we will discuss three basic types of keyboard: QWERTY,
DVORAK, Chord
 QWERTY keyboard
 The QWERTY keyboard was invented by Christopher Sholes
who was issued a patent for a typewriter on July 14, 1868. The
QWERTY keyboard is named after the five letter keys located at
the top left side of the keyboard and is now the official standard
of computer keyboards (ISO 9995). Today, the QWERTY
keyboard is the most commonly found and used computer
keyboard in the United States.

Top 6 Letter keys

 DVORAK keyboard
 The Dvorak Keyboard is a keyboard layout developed in 1936
by Dr. August Dvorak and his brother-in-law.
 Over the years several variations were designed. These
variations commonly known as the Dvorak keyboard or
Dvorak layout.
 The main objective of DVORAK keyboard is to make typing or
using of keyboard more rhythmic, user friendly, increase
speed, reduce effort and fatigue, thus reduce error.

15
 Computer Mouse

• The computer mouse is considered an input device.

With a click of a button, the mouse sends
information to the computer.

• The computer mouse is an interesting device that

offers an alternative way to interact with the
computer beside a keyboard.

• It looks like real mouse with the cord is the tail and
the part we hold is the body.
 Computer Mouse

 It is a hand-operated electronic device that controls the

coordinates of a cursor on the computer screen as the user
moves it around on a surface. It can be used only in graphical
user interface based computer system.
 Mouse performs the pointing operation through the following
four actions:
1. Clicking
2. Double clicking
3. Dragging
4. Right clicking
 Inventor of Mouse
 The computer mouse was invented by Douglas Englebart during
the 60's and was patented on November 17, 1970.
 This mouse was first used with the Xerox Alto computer
system in 1973.
First Mouse invented by
Douglas Englebart
 Types of Mouse
 A mouse can be classified in several ways.
 According to the working mechanism a mouse can be three
types:
1. Mechanical
2. Optomechanical
3. Optical
 A mouse can be three type according to how a computer
mouse hooks up or connects to the computer:
1. Serial mouse
2. PS/2 mouse
3. Cordless mouse
 Basic Parts of a Mouse
1. A Ball
2. Two rollers
3. An infrared LED and an infrared sensor
4. On-board processor chip
5. A shaft
1. A ball inside the mouse touches the desktop
and rolls when the mouse moves.
2. Two rollers inside the mouse touch the ball. One of the
rollers is oriented so that it detects motion in the X direction,
and the other is oriented 90 degrees to the first roller so it
detects motion in the Y direction. When the ball rotates, one
or both of these rollers rotate as well. The following image
shows the two white rollers on this mouse:

The rollers that

touch the ball and
detect X and Y
motion
3. The rollers each connect to a shaft, and the shaft spins a disk
with holes in it. When a roller rolls, its shaft and disk spin. The
following image shows the disk:

Typical optical
encoding disk: This
disk has 36 holes
around its outer
edge.
4. On either side of the disk there is an infrared LED and an
infrared sensor. The holes in the disk break the beam of light
coming from the LED so that the infrared sensor sees pulses
of light. The rate of the pulsing is directly related to the speed
of the mouse and the distance it travels.

There is an
infrared LED
(clear) on one
side of the disk
and an infrared
sensor (red) on
the other.
5. An on-board processor chip reads the pulses from the
infrared sensors and turns them into binary data that the
computer can understand. The chip sends the binary data to
the computer through the mouse's cord.
 Mechanical Mouse
This is a type of computer mouse that has a rubber or metal
ball on its underside and it can roll in every direction.
There are sensors within the mouse, which are mechanical,
detect the direction in which the ball is moving and moves
the pointer on the screen in the same direction. A mouse
pad should be used under the mouse to run on
 Working Principle
 A mechanical mouse incorporates an internal ball that
comes in contact with the surface on which the mouse has
been placed.
 The ball automatically rotates, when a user moves the
mouse on the surface or desktop.
 Two wheels are used for detecting the rolling. Both the
wheels are placed at 90 degree angles from each other for
detecting mouse movements and its direction.
 Here one wheel can detect up and down movements,
whereas, other is used for left and right movements.
 Furthermore, the guide wheel (third wheel) that comes
loaded with spring pushes the ball against the two sensor
wheels for its functioning.
 Opto-mechanical Mouse
 This is the same as the mechanical mouse except that it
uses optical sensors to the motion of the ball. It
demands a mouse pad under the mouse to run on.
With advances in mouse technology, now-preferred device
for pointing and clicking is the optical mouse.
Developed by Agilent Technologies and introduced to the
world in late 1999, the optical mouse actually uses a tiny
camera to take 1,500 pictures every second.
 Working Principle
 Optical mouse has a small and red light-emitting diode (LED)
that bounces light off that surface onto a (complimentary metal-
oxide semiconductor) CMOS sensor.
 The CMOS sensor sends each image to a digital signal
processor (DSP) for analysis.
 The DSP operates at 18 MIPS (million instructions per second),
is able to detect patterns in the images and see how those
patterns have moved or changed since the previous image.
 Based on the change in patterns over a sequence of images, the
DSP determines how far the mouse has moved and sends the
corresponding coordinates to the computer.
 The computer moves the cursor on the screen based on the
coordinates received from the mouse. This happens hundreds of
times each second, making the cursor appear to move very
smoothly.
 Advantages of Optical Mouse

Optical mice have several benefits over wheeled mice:

1.Able to work on almost any surface
2.No moving parts means less wear and a lower chance of
failure.
3.There's no way for dirt to get inside the mouse and
interfere with the tracking sensors.
4.Increased tracking resolution means smoother response.
5.They don't require a special surface, such as a mouse
pad.
 What Data is Sent?
 When the mouse moves or the user clicks a button, it sends 4
bytes (32bits) of data to the computer. The first 8 bits contain:
1. Left button state (0 = off, 1 = on)
2. Right button state (0 = off, 1 = on)
3. 0
4. 1
5. X direction (positive or negative)
6. Y direction
7. X overflow (the mouse moved more than 255 pulses in
1/40th of a second)
8. Y overflow
 The next 2 bytes contain the X and Y movement values,
respectively.