Top: Computers: Hardware: Peripherals


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Overview

Peripherals are the hardware devices in a computer that perform specialized tasks and are external to the main computer's motherboard. Peripherals can be connected directly into slots on the motherboard, or through ports such as the serial port, the parallel port, USB or Universal Serial Bus ports, and many other kinds of connections.

Some popular examples of a peripheral are:
- Hard disks
- Keyboards
- The Mouse
- Scanners
- Sound cards
- Graphics cards
- Network interface cards or NIC's

When a peripheral reaches a certain level of popularity, like network interface cards, they are frequently integrated directly into the computer's motherboard.


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Monitor

The monitor is the primary display device that communicates visual information in the form of text and graphics to the user. Some popular monitor types are:

- Cathode Ray Tubes or CRT's
- Liquid Crystal Displays or LCD's
- Plasma screens


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Input Device

Most computers need a way to allow a human operator to communicate with it. For example to give it instructions, enter data, or write software programs. When people think of using a computer the keyboard frequently comes to mind. However there are many other kinds of input devices. For example:

- Microphones for speech and other audio input
- Eye blinks sensors so the severely handicapped can provide input to a computer
- Scanners which allow documents to be digitized and stored on a computer
- Touch screens which are popular on Personal Digital Assistant's or PDA's

Even more innovative input devices are on the horizon such as virtual reality gloves with tactile feedback and others.



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