User:DickyDick31/sandbox

Input device

Input' means to enter data, programs, commands and user responses into the memory of the computer. An input device therefore is therefore any device that transfers data from the outside world into a computer. In computing, input devices are divided into two main categories: manual and direct data entry input devices.

Manual Input Devices
Manual input device are used by people to enter data by hand. there are several different types of manual input devices that are used for different purposes.

Keyboard
The keyboard is the most common type of input device. Ordinary computer keyboards have their keys arranged in a similar way to those on a typewriter. This way of arranging the keys is called QWERTY because of the order that the keys appear in on the first row of letters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWcPA5_8RnM

Pointing Devices
A mouse is a pointing device. It is the next most common type of input device after the keyboard. Touch pads and trackballs are also types of pointing device. They are often used instead of a mouse on portable computers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7ZOA1wk_0Y

Joystick
The main use of a joystick is to play computer games by controlling the way that something moves on the screen. Joysticks can be used to control movement from side-to-side, up-and-down and diagonally. A joystick will also always have at least one button on it which can be used to make something happen like making a character in a game jump or fire a gun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-ceVq3aslM

Touch screen
A touch screen can detect exactly where on its surface it has been touched. Touch screens are used in a lot of fast food chains and restaurants because they are easy to keep clean and re-program if changes need to be made to the menu. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PXE8kkm-74

Direct Data Entry Device
A direct data entry device can transfer information automatically from a source document such as a form or barcode into the computer. The user does not need to manually enter the information. http://www.thomastallis.greenwich.sch.uk/gcse/gcseict3/online/artinin.htm

Barcode Reader
Barcodes are often printed on products that you can buy and are used by shops and supermarkets to produce bills for customers. A barcode is made up of a sequence of bars of different widths. Different groups of bars are used to represent different numbers. A printed barcode is therefore simply a way of representing a number. The number is often printed above or below the barcode so that humans can read it.

Barcodes are read into the computer using a wand or a fixed scanner (barcode reader). Barcodes are not easily damaged and can normally still be read if they are creased or not stuck onto a flat surface. They can be printed using a normal printer and ink and so are cheap to produce. The information normally included on a barcode for a product is country of origin, manufacturer and item code. The price is not included in the barcode.

The Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR)
The Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) system reads characters printed in a special magnetic ink into the computer. The main users of MICR are banks. They use it to read information from cheques into their computers so that the cheques can be cashed.

Magnetic stripes
Magnetic stripes are built into many plastic cards such as cheque guarantee or credit 6 cards.

Smart cards
Smart cards are often called input devices. In fact they are actually simple storage devices. A smart card looks like a magnetic stripe card but it contains a small RAM chip. When the card is put into a machine data can be read from the card or written onto it. A smart card can store much more data than a magentic stripe card can. A popular card in use at the moment can store 8k (about 8000 characters) of information.

Optical Mark Reader (OMR)
An optical mark reader (OMR) reads marks made by pencil on a printed form into the computer. OMR systems are used by examination boards to collect the answers to multiple choice examinations and to purchase lottery tickets.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
An optical character recognition system consists of a scanner and some software. The scanner is used to scan an image of a page of text to be read into the computer. The software then examines the page and extracts the text from it, storing it in a form that can be processed.