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7 extended hardware concepts
Input devices
 Pointing devices
 Pointing devices move a pointer/ cursor on their screen
 Allows you to see what you are pointing at
 Required for all modern software in order to interact with the
GUI
 Mouse
 Most commonly used pointing device
 Has at least 2 buttons
 Usually has a scroll
 Move the mouse to move the pointer on the screen
 Touch pad
 Pressure sensitive surfaces built into laptops
 They follow the movement of your finger on the surface
 Usually include 2 buttons
 Pointing stick
 Small button between keys of the keyboard
 Used in laptops
 Move pointing stick to move pointer
 Press stick to click
 Trackball
 Device with large ball on top
 Move pointer by roasting th ball with your fingers
 Useful if you don’t have spare desk space for moving a mouse
 Also useful for people with disabilities who struggle to move a
mouse
 Pen + tablet
 A special pen/ stylus used on a special tablet
 A well-known brand is the Wacom tablet
 Useful for artistic work - allows for more natural drawing than
a mouse. The tablet area represents your computer’s screen
 These pens are not the same as pens/styluses used on touch
screen devices - even though they share the same name
 Touch screen
 Many modern devices use touch screens as their only input device
 Instead of moving a pointer, you interact directly with objects on the screen
 This allows you to use gestures as input
 A touch screen is also an output device
 Sensors
 Devices such as smartphones have built-in sensors, including:
 Accelerometer: detects movement. Allows for automatic changes to orientation of screen, and
movement-based games.
 Temperature sensor: detects if the device gets too hot - may switch off automatically to prevent
damage to the device.
 Light sensor: allows a phone to automatically adjust screen brightness.
 Electronic compass: determines which direction the device is facing.
 Gaming devices
 Specialised input devices designed specifically to improve the gaming experience, including:
 Joysticks
 Driving wheels
 Gamepads
 May also include special keyboards, mice, chairs and headphones designed for gaming
 Digital cameras
 Cheap and easy to use
 Don't have to buy film
 Can view photos immediately
 Easy to manipulate photos digitally
 Picture quality limited by maximum resolution of camera (measured in megapixels)
 Higher resolution means larger file size
Scanners and reading devices
 Scanner
 Input devices that scans images into a computer
 Flatbed scanners
 Usually just bigger than A4 size
 Used to scan photos, magazines, printed documents
 Sheet fed scanners
 Smaller than flatbed scanner = more portable
 Allows a sheet of paper to be scanner
 Does not allow books or thick objects
 Barcode readers
 Shines a laser light onto a pattern of black lines (barcode)
 Recognises a numerical code associated with the item/product
 Benefits of a barcode system
 Computer uses the barcode to access additional information (price, stock level, if the book is
reserved about the item
 Faster than a human could find this information
 Faster to process items (e.g. at a till) than typing in codes
 If prices/info changes, system can be updated - don't have to relabel stock
 Biometric scanners
 Measures something biologically unique to you:
 fingerprint pattern
 iris pattern
 Fingerprint scanners often built into new laptops and phones, and some flash disks
 Card input
 Credit/bank cards store data magnetically on the strip on the back of the card
 Magnetic sensor reads the data when card is swiped
 Modern cards have chips to store data and help prevent card duplication
 RFID
 Radio frequency identification
 Uses small radio devices (smaller than a grain of rice!) to store and transmit data
 These will probably replace barcodes in the future - some shops are already using them
 Tags can be automatically detected and 'read'
 Used in many types of devices
 Security tags in stores
 Identification tags
 Access tags
 Contactless cards
Character recognition
 OMR
 Optical mark recognition
 Used in computerised tests (e.g. multiple choice tests)
 Tests are scanned and marked by computer
 MICR
 Magnetic Ink Character Recognition
 Bank cheques have account numbers & other information
 Printed with special magnetic ink
 Speeds up the way cheques are processed
 Optical character recognition
 Scanning a document creates an image but you can't edit the text
 The image needs to be converted to text first
 OCR software tries to recognise letters and words in an image and convert it to text
 The accuracy depends on the clarity and quality of the scanned document
 Video input
 Reasons to transfer video to a computer:
 to edit them into movies / video clips
 to add video to presentations to carry out video communication
 to share them with friends using services like YouTube
 Transferring video to a computer
 Record directly from a webcam
 Most laptops have a built-in webcam
 Transfer from a cellphone, digital camera or video camera
 Connect the device via a cable to a USB or FireWire port
 Remove the memory card and place it into a card reader connected to the computer
 Audio input
 Sound input can be used for:
 Recording and mixing music
 Recording narration or voice-overs for presentations, games, or movies Inputting text
(speech-to-text)
 Giving the computer commands (e.g. Siri, Alexa, or Xbox Kinect)


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7 extended hardware concepts

Scanners and reading devices

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