Computer Peripherals
By Adrian Chow
What are peripherals?
A peripheral is a device attached to a computer, the gadgets that make you able to interact with a computer, to store your online work and to print/hear/show/etc you the result (e.g sound, printed paper, etc). Peripherals are one of the most important parts of a computer.
Types of peripherals
There are three different types of peripherals:
- Input, used to interact with, or send data to the computer (mouse, keyboards, etc.)
- Output, which provides output to the user from the computer (monitors, printers, etc.)
- Storage, which stores data processed by the computer (hard drives, flash drives, etc.)
Input devices
Examples of input devices:
- Keyboard
- Mouse
- Touchscreen
- Pen tablet
- Joystick
- MIDI keyboard
- Scanner
- Digital camera
- Video camera
- Microphone
Storage devices
Examples of storage devices:
- Floppy disk/diskette
- CD-ROM disk
- CD-R and CD-RW disc
- Cloud storage
- DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW dIsk
- Jump or USB flash drive
- Hard drive
- Memory card
- Memory stick
- Network media
- Tape cassette
- Zip diskette
Output devices
Examples of output devices:
- Monitor
- Projector
- TV screen
- Printer
- Plotter
- Speakers
- Headphones
- Light / LED
Note: There are lots more Input / Output devices in this world. The ones above are the most commonly used.
Summary
Peripherals are very important to computers and to computer history. It's a necessary ingredient into making computers. Without them, we can't work with computers, much less than turn it on. However, lots of people use computer peripherals everyday, yet they don't know the term 'peripheral'. Peripherals are important to course of computer science.