Buffering involves holding data temporarily while its is in transit between the processor and the peripheral

Data format conversion involves changing the data received from the peripheral into a form that the processor can understand and vice versa

The passing of data from one device to another

This may be between parts of a computer system or between computers in a network

Serial data transmission sends the bits for each character in the data one after another along the same data line.

Parallel data transmission sends each bit which makes up a character simultaneously along a separate data line.

A key job of interfaces is to convert the analogue signals that are sent in from peripherals to the digital form that the CPU can handle

Peripherals mainly work at higher voltage levels than the CPU. These signals needs to be reduced to the CPU.s level and this is one of the jobs of the interface.

The purpose of status information is to show whether or not a peripheral device is ready to communicate, that is, receive or to send data.