Computer - Input Devices

• Following are some of the important input

devices which are used in a computer.

• Keyboard

• Mouse
• Joy Stick

• Light pen

• Track Ball
• Scanner

• Graphic Tablet
• Microphone

• Magnetic Ink Card Reader(MICR)

• Optical Character Reader(OCR)

• Bar Code Reader

• Optical Mark Reader (OMR)
 Computer - Output Devices

• Following are some of the important output

devices used in a computer.
Monitors
Graphic Plotter
Printer
• Monitors: commonly called as Visual Display
Unit (VDU), are the main output device of a
computer.

There are two kinds of viewing screen used for

monitors.

Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT)

Plasma Panel Display
Liquid Crystal Display
 Understanding of CRT
The CRT is a display screen which produces images in
the form of the video signal.
 Working of CRT
• The working of CRT depends on the movement of electron beam.

• The electron guns generate sharply focused electrons which are accelerated

at high voltage.

• After exiting from the electron gun, the beam passes through the pairs of

electrostatic deflection plate.

• These plates deflected the beams when the voltage applied across it.

• one pair of plate moves the beam upward and the second pair of plate

moves the beam from one side to another.

• The working parts of a CRT are enclosed in a vacuum glass envelope so

that the emitted electron can easily move freely from one end of the tube to

the other.
• There are basically two image drawing
techniques that are used in graphic displays.
i) Stroke Writing
ii) Raster Scan
In Stroke Writing display, the electron gun
directly draws the vectors on the screen to
generate the image.
 In Raster Scan, the whole display surface is
divided into a matrix of small dots called
pixels and the electron beam scans the whole
surface area line by line.
• Irrespective of the writing technique employed,
the phosphor glow created by the electron
impingement on the screen in short lived.
• To achieve a static image, storage tube technology
is developed by the Tektronix in 1972 called
DVST.
• In DVST, the display is generated in same way as
in conventional CRT.
• However a cathode grid would be a part of the
screen surface, which once excited by the electron
beam would continuously emit electrons which
would maintain the image on the screen.
• The disadvantage of this system is that once
written, partial erasing of an image is not possible.
• Presently, this type of devices are almost obsolete.
• The second method used is that of direct stroke writing
with a direct refreshing tube or vector refresh tube.
• In this the image is generated on the screen by direct
drawing of straight vectors on the screen.
• As the phosphor glow is short lived, it is continuously
refreshed by repeated stroke writing at a rate enough to
eliminate flicker from the screen.
• It is required to refresh the screen at a rate about 60
times/sec to maintain flicker free vision.
• It is possible to obtain colour display in refresher tubes.
• The phosphor coating on the screen contains three
different dots (RGB) arranged side by side at the same
spot.
• The CRT contains three electron guns.
• In the raster scan displays, the complete screen is
divided into matrix of pixels.
• Each square represents one pixel.

• The electron beam generates a single dot at the

center of the screen.
• The distance between the squares is called the dot
pitch which indicates the fineness of the display.
• The display is generated by identifying which
pixels need to be bright for a given vector and
then the full-screen display is obtained by
scanning the complete screen horizontally line
by line as shown in fig.
• The refresh rate is to be maintained sufficiently
high to have no flicker in the image.
• For this the whole screen is to be completely
written in 1/60th of a second.
• This is called sequential or non-interlaced
refreshing
• In some low cost devices, the refresh rate is
half which reduces the cost of the monitor.
• In these devices, in each of the cycles only half
of the screen image is refreshed instead of full
by omitting alternate lines termed as interlaced
refreshing.
 Plasma Panel
• A layer of gas (usually neon) is sandwiched
between two glass plates.
• By applying high voltage to a pair of
horizontal and vertical conductors, a small
section of the gas (tiny neon bulb) at the
intersection of the conductors break down into
glowing plasma of electrons and ions..
 Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD)
• Used in small systems, such as calculators, laptop
computers.
• Produce a picture by passing polarized light (from
the surrounding or from an internal light source)
through a liquid-crystal material that can be aligned
to either block or transmit the light.
• Liquid crystals exist in a state between liquid and
solid.
• LCs are sensitive to temperature.
• The array of LCs become opaque when the electric
field is applied.
• LCD makes use of a type of LC that exists in
what is called the Nematic Phase.
• Nematic LC is a transparent material that
causes the light polarization waves to change
as they pass through the LC.
• Twisted NLC has a natural twist at the
molecular level and the degree of twist is
highly controllable by applying current.
• LCD consists of two sheets of polarized glass having a
film on one side which provides the glass its
polarizing properties.
• A special polymer is applied on the other side on
which a coat of NLC is added.
• The two pieces of glass are arranged in such a way
that the polarization of the second sits at a right
angle to that of the first.
• If the molecules are twisted then the light will
pass.
• When the current passes through the NLC, it
will untwist, blocking the light.
• LCD monitors use either built-in fluorescent
bulbs or LEDs.
LIGHT EMITTING DIODE DISPLAY (LED)
• LED display is a screen display technology that
uses a panel of LEDs as the light source.
• The biggest advantage of the LED display is its
efficient and low-energy consumption.
• An LED display consists of a number of LED
panels that, in turn, consist of several LEDs.
• A matrix of diodes is arranged to form the
pixel positions in the display, and picture
definition is stored in a refresh buffer.
• Information is read from the refreshed buffer
and converted to voltage levels that are applied
to the diodes to produce the light patterns in
the display.
 HARD COPY DEVICES
• Once the output is obtained on the display
devices, it can be transformed to hard copy
using:
Graphical Printers
Plotters
Photographic devices.
 Graphical Printers
1. Impact Dot-Matrix Printer
2. Thermal transfer Printer
3. Inkjet Printer
4. Laser Printer
5. Colour Laser Printer
Impact Dot-Matrix Printer
Thermal transfer Printer

Laser Printer

Inkjet Printer
 Plotters

Electrostatic Plotter

Inkjet Plotter