This topic is quite long. To make the download time reasonable, I have broken the topic down into smaller pieces. You can go to any of the sub-topics, although the questions are in order across the whole topic:
Go to Scanners
Go to Other Peripherals
Go to Multimedia
Go to Printers
Computers have a wide range of peripherals. These are devices that are not necessarily within the box that contains the motherboard, but still need a computer to make them work at all. A computer keyboard without the computer to go with it is utterly pointless. Peripherals can be input or output. The computer itself does the processing and the auxiliary storage tasks. In this picture you can see the peripherals around a typical PC.
Input peripherals are there to get the data into the computer for it to process. Getting data into a computer is called data capture. There are a number of methods of data capture, apart from the obvious method of using the keyboard.
Question 1 Explain why a computer without peripherals is useless. ANSWER
Keyboard
There are problems:
Transcription errors can occur in copying from a document.
Time consuming
Repetitive strain injury is an occupational hazard for operators entering lots of data.
The QWERTY keyboard is the most common. It stems from the days of the old manual typewriter, where the arrangement was worked out so that hammers for common symbols did not get tangled up. Now that there is no problem, there is no real point to the arrangement, but typists are used to it and don’t want to change. So Qwerty is the most common layout.
The computer keyboard has function keys marked F1 to F12. Programs can allow the operator to do particular tasks by pressing one of these keys. For example, F1 gives context specific help, as is shown in the picture below:
Some keyboards on specialist devices are arranged in alphabetical order.
Concept keyboards are common in commercial applications. For example in a fast food outlet, the operative types one key on a keypad for a burger, and another single key for chips. The computer in the till then works out the price from a pre-programmed database.
Key-pads with pictures on are used for very young children and for those with learning difficulties. These too can be described as concept keyboards.
Touch screen devices are used in shops and museums for customers to access information. This one on the left is in a car; the one on the right is for a till in a shop.
Voice Recognition is a system whereby the operator speaks into a microphone. The computer interprets the sounds and displays them on the screen as text that can then be word-processed. This system too has problems:
The computer has to be tuned to the operator’s voice, a slow and tedious procedure in which several hundred standard words and sentences are spoken.
Even then it cannot cope with strong regional dialects.
It is not always 100 % accurate, and can turn your spoken text into written garbage.
Question 2 Give one use for voice recognition software and a reason why it could be useful. ANSWER
Question 3. Explain why Voice Recognition Software has drawbacks. ANSWER
Now go on to Scanners.