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What are the input devices?
In computing, it is understood as input devices or feeding devices ( input ) that allow entering information into the computer system , either from the user , from another computer or a system of them, or from a portable physical support.
The different input devices translate the data into electrical impulses , which are then transmitted to the computer for processing and storage in the central or internal memory. They are vital to allow communication between the computer system and the outside, together with the output devices, of which they differ in that the latter extract information from the system instead of entering it.
Many input devices are also output , however, and are called I / O devices (in English I / O, acronym Input / Output ) or Input / Output, also known as mixed devices.
See also: Output devices .
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Examples of input devices
Some examples of popular input devices are:
- Keyboards . Peripheral devices that allow to enter text to the system, through a panel of buttons that assign certain values to each of them, according to a specific language. It is the entry device par excellence.
- Pointers or mice . Invented to enter information into graphic or visual representation systems, they translate the movements that the user makes with the device to specific instructions in the system, allowing various operations, from painting, to moving in virtual environments, etc.
- Microphones . They capture the sound ( sound waves in the air) and translate it into electrical impulses that can then be encoded and stored, or transmitted and reproduced to recover the spoken message, music, etc.
- Cameras . In a similar way, they capture the image using a lens system and photosensitive components, to digitally store the real image and movement and be able to transmit or reproduce them later, or immediately but over huge distances, as in videoconferences.
- Scanners . These are devices similar to photocopiers, capable of “reading” the image arranged in their tray to transmit a digital copy of it to the computer system. In this way, documents can be sent, stored or reproduced through a computer system.
- Barcode readers . Like those used in the supermarket: gun, base or bar, these are optical readers that recognize a bar code (black lines on a white background) in which the information of the purchased product (or stored, or whatever) using a numeric code.
- Joysticks . Its name comes from English: joy (fun) and stick (bar, stick), which shows that they are leisure devices. They feed a computer system with the commands that the user wants to transmit to the game, allowing him to control what happens or interact with the system.
- Modems . Communication devices through telephone networks, which translate the impulses of the line into digital information, allowing to receive information from other computer systems, such as the Internet . Actually it is a system of entry and exit, it also allows the sending of information.
- CD units . The invention of the Compact Disc (of the English Compact Disk or CD), round pieces read by means of an optical ray (laser), allowed to store and above all to recover information of them, since once “recorded” they could neither be erased nor altered, and They were used to enter data into a computer. Nowadays they are considered quite obsolete.