A modern printer can print everything from simple letters to brochures, flyers and now - with the emergence of 3D printers - solid objects such as prototypes. A scanner works like a photocopier, but the image is loaded straight into a computer or smartphone. Scanners have increasingly been replaced by apps which utilise the camera function on your smartphone.
There are a few key questions to ask yourself when choosing your printer :. There are two main types of printer :. Other types of printers include plotters , which are used to print posters and banners, dot matrix printers , which use old technology but work particularly well in challenging environments such as kitchens, and - at the other end of the spectrum - the new kid in town, 3D printers, which can be used to realise and print 3D designs. Becoming an increasingly common fixture in design houses and manufacturing businesses, 3D printers allow designers, entrepreneurs and engineers to design and create 3D ideas, prototypes and fully formed products.
Unless you print only a few pages a week, a laser printer is probably your best option. Buying one heavy-duty printer usually offers better value than purchasing several smaller ones. If you intend to share a printer between users, look for a model you can plug straight in to your computer network. Many printers offer wireless networking, too. This allows the printer to connect to your wireless network and is useful if there's no network point near your printer.
The function of the peripheral determines to which category it belongs. The computer mouse and scanner fall under the input device category. As the name suggests, input devices are used to send information to the computer. A mouse is used to input the movements of a cursor, while a scanner is used to input physical media into digital format. Printers and speakers are examples of computer output devices. Analog devices, such as 3D mice, joysticks, or pointing sticks, function by reporting their angle of deflection.
Input devices, such as buttons and joysticks, can be combined on a single physical device that could be thought of as a composite device. Many gaming devices have controllers like this. Technically mice are composite devices, as they both track movement and provide buttons for clicking, but composite devices are generally considered to have more than two different forms of input. Video input devices are used to digitize images or video from the outside world into the computer. Audio input devices are used to capture sound.
In some cases, an audio output device can be used as an input device, in order to capture produced sound. 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.
A display device is an output device that visually conveys text, graphics, and video information. Information shown on a display device is called soft copybecause the information exists electronically and is displayed for a temporary period of time. Inputs are the signals or data received by the system, and outputs are the signals or data sent from it.
There are many input and output devices such as multifunction printers and computer-based navigation systems that are used for specialised or unique applications. In computing, memory refers to the devices used to store information for use in a computer. The term primary memory is used for storage systems which function at high-speed i.
RAM , as a distinction from secondary memory, which provides program and data storage that is slow to access but offer higher memory capacity. Volatile memory is computer memory that requires power to maintain the stored information. SRAM retains its contents as long as the power is connected and is easy to interface to but uses six transistors per bit.
Dynamic RAM is more complicated to interface to and control and needs regular refresh cycles to prevent its contents being lost. However, DRAM uses only one transistor and a capacitor per bit, allowing it to reach much higher densities and, with more bits on a memory chip, be much cheaper per bit. SRAM is commonplace in small embedded systems, which might only need tens of kilobytes or less. Non-volatile memory is computer memory that can retain the stored information even when not powered.
Examples of non-volatile memory include read-only memory see ROM , flash memory, most types of magnetic computer storage devices e.
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