INTRODUCTION:

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) which
converts the electronically generated information into human-readable form.

TYPES:

DISPLAY/MONITORS
VOICE OUTPUT/SPEAKER
PRINTER
PROJECTOR

DISPLAY:
Electrically operated display devices have developed from electromechanical systems for display
of text, up to all-electronic devices capable of full-motion 3D color graphic displays.
Electromagnetic devices, using a solenoid coil to control a visible flag or flap, were the earliest
type, and were used for text displays such as stock market prices and arrival/departure display
times. The cathode ray tube was the workhorse of text and video display technology for several
decades until being displaced by plasma, liquid crystal (LCD) and solid-state devices such
as LEDs and OLEDs. With the advent of microprocessors and microelectronic devices, many
more individual picture elements ("pixels") could be incorporated into one display device,
allowing graphic displays and video.

HISTORY:
One of the earliest electronic displays is the cathode ray tube (CRT), which was made commercial in
1922. The CRT consists of an electron gun that forms images by firing electrons onto a phosphor-coated
screen. The earliest CRTs were monochrome and were used primarily in oscilloscopes and black and
white televisions. The first commercial colour CRT was produced in 1954. [1] CRTs were the single most
popular display technology used in television sets and computer monitors for over half a century; it was
not until the 2000s that LCDs began to gradually replace them.

A derivative of CRTs were storage tubes, which had the ability to retain information displayed on them,
unlike standard CRTs which need to be refreshed periodically. In 1968, Tektronix introduced the DirectView Bistable Storage Tube, which went on to be widely used in oscilloscopes and computer terminals.

Types Of Display:
Monochrome CRT (1922) :
The cathode ray tube or (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns usually
three red, green and blue (a source of electrons or electron emitter) and a fluorescent screen used
to view images. It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam(s) onto the screen to
create the images.

Color CRT (1954)

Direct-View Bistable Storage Tube (1968)
The Direct-View Bistable Storage Tube CRT retains static information displayed upon it, written
using a steerable electron beam that can be turned off. In principle the DVBST is similar to an Etch-aSketch, and was used in vector displays of early computers and in oscilloscopes
Flip-flap/disc display (1957)
Monochrome plasma display (1964)
Light Emitting Diode- LED (1968)
Braille display (1969)
Eggcrate display (1968)
Vacuum Fluorescent Display (1967)

Figure: VFD
Twisted nematic field effect LCD (1971)

Figure: TNFE LCD

Super-twisted nematic LCD (1984)
Thin film transistor LCD (1986)
Full-color plasma display (1995)
Organic light-emitting diode OLED (2003)
Electronic paper (2004)

Picture: A 19-inch (48 cm), 16:10 widescreen LCD monitor.

LED display:

In recent years there has been a marked shift towards the use of LED (Light Emitting Diode) as
a back-light source. The advantages of LEDs are as follows:

Picture: A LED display by Fujitsu

1. Faster Turn On: LEDs can reach maximum brightness faster than CCFLs, in fact almost
instantly.
2. More Neutral Colors: CCFLs are known to give a warm/yellowish tint. LEDs have a
more neutral white-point.
3. Brighter: LEDs are brighter generally than CCFLs, thus allowing a display to achieve
even higher maximum brightness.
4. Thinner: The reason LEDs are coming into prominence is that it was driven by the
notebook sectors - LED back-lighting can be made thinner than CCFL back-lighting.
5. Longer-Lasting: Apparently, LEDs are rated for more life than CCFLs. Also the
degradation over time is less severe than CCFLs.

Computer speaker:
Computer speakers, or multimedia speakers, are speakers external to a computer, that disable the
lower fidelity built-in speaker. They often have a low-power internal amplifier. The standard
audio connection is a 3.5 mm (approximately 1/8 inch) stereo phone connector often color-coded
lime green (following the PC 99 standard) for computer sound cards. A few use a RCA connector
for input. There are also USB speakers which are powered from the 5 volts at 500 milliamps
provided by the USB port, allowing about 2.5 watts of output power. Computer speakers were
introduced by Altec Lansing in 1990.

Picture: A pair of speakers for notebook computers that are powered and audio-connected to the computer via USB.

Computer speakers range widely in quality and in price. The computer speakers typically
packaged with computer systems are small, plastic, and have mediocre sound quality. Some
computer speakers have equalization features such as bass and treble controls.
The internal amplifiers require an external power source, usually an AC adapter. More
sophisticated computer speakers can have a subwoofer unit, to enhance bass output, and these
units usually include the power amplifiers both for the bass speaker, and the small satellite
speakers.
Some computer displays have rather basic speakers built-in. Laptops come with integrated
speakers. Restricted space available in laptops means these speakers usually produce low-quality
sound.

For some users, a lead connecting computer sound output to an existing stereo system is
practical. This normally yields much better results than small low-cost computer speakers.
Computer speakers can also serve as an economy amplifier for MP3 player use for those who
wish to not use headphones, although some models of computer speakers have headphone jacks
of their own.

Printer:
Definition: A printer is a piece of hardware for a computer. It is a device that must be connected to
a computer which allows a user to print items on paper, such as letters and pictures. It can also work
with digital cameras to print directly without the use of a computer.

History of Computer Printers:

In 1953, the first high-speed printer was developed by Remington-Rand for use on
the Univac computer.
In 1938, Chester Carlson invented a dry printing process called electro-photography commonly
called a Xerox, the foundation technology for laser printers to come.
The original laser printer called EARS was developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
beginning in 1969 and completed in November, 1971. Xerox Engineer, Gary Stark weather adapted
Xerox copier technology adding a laser beam to it to come up with the laser printer. According to
Xerox, "The Xerox 9700 Electronic Printing System, the first xerographic laser printer product, was
released in 1977. The 9700, a direct descendent from the original PARC "EARS" printer which
pioneered in laser scanning optics, character generation electronics, and page-formatting software,
was the first product on the market to be enabled by PARC research."
According to IBM, "the very first IBM 3800 was installed in the central accounting office at F. W.
Woolworths North American data center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1976." The IBM 3800 Printing
System was the industrys first high-speed, laser printer. A laser printer that operated at speeds of
more than 100 impressions-per-minute. It was the first printer to combine laser technology and
electro-photography according to IBM.
In 1992, Hewlett-Packard released the popular LaserJet 4, the first 600 by 600 dots per inch
resolution laser printer.

Types of printers:

Impact Printers

i.

iii.

v.

Dot-matrix printers

Non-Impact Printers

ii.

Inkjet printers

iv.

Laser printers

vi.

Plotters

Dye sublimation printers

Daisy Wheel printers

Dot-matrix printer:
Dot-matrix printers are printers for computers. A dot matrix printer creates characters by striking
pins against ink ribbons. Each pin makes a dot and combinations of dots form characters and
illustrations. This is much like a typewriter. Each character is made from a matrix of dots. Today,
dot matrix printers are not used by many people anymore. They are still in use where forms (with
multiple copies) need to be filled out.

Picture: An early Macintosh computer with a dot-matrix printer.

Picture: Example of a dot-matrix printout

Inkjet printer:
An Inkjet printer is a printer for computers. It uses special ink to print on the paper. Another type
of printing technology is the Laser printer.
Usually, inkjet printers are used by people who print very little. The ink comes in special ink
cartridges, which can be very expensive and uneconomical. Also, the ink in the cartridge may dry
up. This means that a new cartridge is needed.

Many professionals use inkjet printers to print on very large surfaces (up to 5m width). These
printers usually do not use cartridges, but have a continuous supply of ink that could last for a
long time. Inkjet printers need special paper. This paper has been treated so that the ink does not
smear. Less expensive inkjet printers, which cost a little more than 100 US dollars, are a bargain
for users who want to be able to print pages in color. Inkjet printers can be very cheap but the ink
can also be rather expensive.
An inkjet printer can print between 300 and 720 DPI (Dots Per Inch)

Picture: Epson Inkjet Printer.

Plotter:
A Plotter is a kind of printer for computers. Plotters use vector graphics. Usually they are used to
print to paper which is very large in size. Plotters print things using special, colored pens. There
is one called the drum plotter. They are often used in warehouses. They are generally used for
making flex .

Picture: A plotter.

Laser printer:
A laser printer is a printer for computers. It uses LED-technology to get small particles of toner
from a cartridge onto paper. Very often, this is more economical to use than the ink of inkjet
printers.
The laser printer was first invented by a team at Xerox in 1969.
Process: Laser printing is a process which typically involves seven steps:
1. Raster Image Processing: the processor inside the printer converts the data to be printed
from whatever format it currently exists in, into a bitmap of the page to be printed - this is
then stored in raster image memory.

2. Charging: An electrostatic charge is then projected onto a revolving photosensitive drum

inside the printer.

Picture: Applying a negative charge to the photosensitive drum.

3. Writing: A laser beam is directed at a rotating polygonal mirror, which redirects the beam
onto the photosensitive drum. The rasterized data in memory is now read, and used to
control whether the laser is on or off, as the beam sweeps across the drum - where the
laser beam strikes the drum the charge is reversed, creating a latent electrical image on
the surface.

4. Developing: The surface of the drum is then exposed to negatively charged particles of
toner, which are attracted to the areas where the laser wrote the latent electrical image.
The toner will be repelled by the negative charge on areas of the drum where the laser
beam did not strike, and hence remove the charge.

5. Transferring: The drum is now rolled over paper, transferring the image from the drum to
the paper (to aid in this process there is a positively charged roller behind the paper,
which pulls the toner off the drum and onto the paper).

6. Fusing: The paper is then passed through a fuser, where rollers provide heat and pressure
to bond the toner to the paper.

Picture: Melting toner onto paper using heat and pressure.

7. Cleaning: An electrically uncharged blade and a discharge lamp remove any toner and all
the charge remaining on the drum (this will all happen in one revolution of the drum).

Picture: A Laser Printer by Apple.

Dye-sublimation printer:

A dye-sublimation printer (or dye-sub printer) is a computer printer which employs a printing
process that uses heat to transfer dye onto materials such as a plastic, card, paper, or fabric. The
sublimation name was first applied because the dye was considered to transition between the
solid and gas states without going through a liquid stage. This understanding of the process was
later shown to be incorrect; since then the process is sometimes known as dye-diffusion, though
this has not eliminated the original name.[1] Many consumer and professional dye-sublimation
printers are designed and used for producing photographic prints, ID cards, and so on.
These are not to be confused with dye sublimation heat transfer imprinting printers, which use
special inks to create transfers designed to be imprinted on textiles, and in which the dyes do
indeed sublimate.[1]
Some dye-sublimation printers use CMYO (Cyan Magenta Yellow Overcoating) colors, which
differs from the more recognized CMYK colors in that the black is eliminated in favour of a
clear overcoating. This overcoating (which has numerous names depending on the manufacturer)
is also stored on the ribbon and is effectively a thin layer which protects the print from
discoloration from UV light and the air, while also rendering the print water-resistant.
For ID card printing, text and bar codes are necessary, and they are printed by means of an
additional black panel on the (YMCKO) ribbon. This extra panel works by thermal transfer
printing instead of dye diffusion: a whole layer, instead of just some of the dye in the layer,
transfers from the ribbon to the substrate at the pixels defined by the thermal head. This overall
process is then sometimes called D2T2 (Dye Diffusion Thermal Transfer).

Picture: Inside a dye sublimation cartridge.

Daisy wheel printers:

Daisy wheel printers operate in much the same fashion as a typewriter. A hammer strikes a wheel
with petals, the "daisy wheel", each petal containing a letter form at its tip. The letter form strikes
a ribbon of ink, depositing the ink on the page and thus printing a character. By rotating the daisy
wheel, different characters are selected for printing. These printers were also referred to as letter-

Picture: Daisy wheel" print element

quality printers because they could produce text which was as clear and crisp as a typewriter. The
fastest letter-quality printers printed at 30 characters per second.

Advantages & Disadvantages of Printers:

Advantage: Convenience
One of the key advantages of printing out material is that it is convenient. If you need to mark it up or
make notes on it, it is easy to do. Most printed documents are lighter and, when folded, smaller than a
tablet or notebook computer. They are also easily replaced, so losing them or getting them wet isn't a
major concern.
Advantage: Secure Delivery
Paper records can be anonymously delivered. Emailing a document creates a chain that shows who
sent it, when they sent it and to whom they sent it. Once someone prints out a document, on the other

hand, they can deliver it or not deliver it to anyone without creating a record of the delivery. This can
be useful if you need to send information without having someone intercept it or without creating a
record that you sent it.
Advantage: Ease of Reading
For many people, printed documents remain easier to read. The text on a printed document is, as of
2012, sharper than the sharpest display. While the iPad 3's display renders text with 264 dots per
inch, even inexpensive printers can output 600 dots per inch. Most tablet and computer displays are
backlit and glossy. This makes them prone to washing out in direct sunlight and prone to glare. The
printed page, on the other hand, is easy to read in anything but dark conditions.

Disadvantage: Cost
While there are a number of variables that determine what it costs to print a document, the simple
fact of the matter is that printing costs money. While the toner or ink for a black-and-white page is
frequently in the range of 1 to 2 cents, you also need to pay for paper and for the printer itself. Color
printing is even more expensive. Electronic documents, on the other hand, cost essentially nothing to
create and to send. You could send an entire high-definition movie, which is roughly equivalent in
size to hundreds of pages, over the Internet for less than the cost of printing a single color page.
Disadvantage: Environmental Concerns
Printers kill trees. On average, a smaller office with 10 to 15 employees will consume enough paper
to necessitate cutting down 18 trees a year. Toner and ink are made with chemicals that can cause
environmental damage. The paper and toner or ink get delivered to your office generates carbon, and
the garbage gets hauled away, which generates more material in landfills and more carbon for the
delivery process. Printers also consume a great deal of power, with the fusers in laser printers
consuming hundreds of watts when they run.

Projector:
A Projector is a device designed to take an image from a video source and project it as faithfully
as possible onto a screen or other surface. Projectors are used in a variety of different ways; they
are enjoyed by home theater enthusiasts due to their ability to project movies and television
programs onto a screen much larger than even the biggest TV available, and used in the
corporate setting to project information onto screens large enough for rooms filled with people to

see. Projectors come in a variety of different shapes and sizes and are produced by many
different companies.

Picture: A Projector.

Types of Projectors:
There are three major types of projectors: Standard LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), Poly-silicon
LCD, and DLP (Digital Light Processing) projectors.

Standard LCD:
Standard LCD projectors have one panel of LCD glass that controls the three primary colors.
Standard LCD projectors are becoming less common as poly-silicon LCD and DLP projectors
gain popularity. They usually display a much brighter image than DLP. However, their
transmission design limits the amount of time they can be used. LCD-based projectors often
operate effectively only a short time, with image deterioration present after 8-10 hours. Because
LCD projectors transmit light through LCD chips, then through the optics and onto the screen,
heat is transferred to the LCD chips from the light source. This causes the LCD chip to
deteriorate and will probably result in severe image loss and can permanently damage the LCD
projector.

Picture: An Internal organization of a Projector.

Poly-silicon LCD:
These projectors control colors through three panels and are higher in quality than standard LCD
projectors. Projecting through 3 panels allows poly-silicon LCD projectors to have higher color
saturation than a standard LCD projector.

DLP (Digital Light Processing):

The most common type of projector on the market, DLPs use a single chip with thousands of
micro mirrors to modulate the lamp's light and project it through the lens. DLP systems are
composed of over 400,000 tiny mirrors, which modulate light from a lamp and project the
"modulated" signal out through the lens onto a screen. This technology is also referred to as
DMD (Digital Mirror Device). This mirror configuration prevents heat from having an adverse
effect on the projector's components. Thus, DLP projectors can operate continuously with no
discernable loss in performance. The only loss comes from slow bulb decay, which gradually
reduces brightness. Simply replacing the bulb will generally return to the DLP projector to its
original quality.

Projector Resolution:
The sharpness and clarity of the picture on screen is determined by a projector's resolution,
which is the sharpness of the image projected based on the number of pixels. The higher number
of pixels, the better .However, the higher the resolution, the more expensive the projector. High-

resolution projectors can show more picture details than low-resolution projectors. Lowresolutions projectors are much less expensive and can produce images that arte just as bright
and attractive as higher resolution machines.

How LCD Projectors Work:

The technology behind the LCD projector is nearly three decades old in 2012, but it remains one
of the top digital projection technologies, alongside Digital Light Processing (DLP) projectors.
Inventor Gene Dolgoff developed the first LCD projector in 1984, and both Epson and Sony
continue to employ the technology in 21st century projectors.
o understand how an LCD projector works, it's best to start at the beginning -- with a beam of
light -- and end on the movie screen itself.
Step one: A powerful light source emits a beam of intense, white light.

Picture: Working Procedure of a Projector.

Step two: Our beam of white light bounces off a group of mirrors that includes two dichroic
mirrors, which are coated in a special film that reflects only a specified wavelength of light. You
know how a prism (or a droplet of water) breaks a beam of light into distinct wavelengths (or a
rainbow of colors)? The same principle applies here, only each dichroic mirror breaks off a
single specified wavelength. So the white light hits the mirrors, and each reflects a beam of
colored light on through the projector: one red, one green and one blue.

Picture: A person seeing something with the help of a projector.

Step three: The beams of red, green and blue light each pass through a liquid crystal display
composed of thousands of tiny pixels. You can read How Liquid Crystal Displays Work for a
more detailed explanation of LCD technology, but it comes down to tiny, colorless pixels that
either block light or allow it to pass through when triggered by an electric current. All three of
the LCD screens in the projector display the same image or moving images, only in gray scale.
When the colored light passes through these three screens, they relay three versions of the same
scene: one tinted red, one tinted green and one tinted blue.