Output, and Storage Technologies
The right peripherals can make all the difference in your computing experience. A topquality monitor will be easier on your eyes—and may change the way you work. A scanner can edge you closer to that ever-elusive goal: the paperless office. Backup-storage systems can offer bank-vault security against losing your work. CD and DVD drives have become essential for many applications. Thus, the right choice of peripherals can make a big difference.
Read the Real World Case 2 about the use of voice recognition technology in health care settings. We can learn a lot about the future of the human–computer interface and its business applications from this case. See Figure 3.13 .
Peripherals is the generic name given to all input, output, and secondary storage devices that are part of a computer system but are not part of the CPU. Peripherals depend on direct connections or telecommunications links to the central processing unit of a computer system. Thus, all peripherals are online devices; that is, they are separate from, but can be electronically connected to and controlled by, a CPU. (This is the opposite of off-line devices that are separate from and not under the control of the CPU.) The major types of peripherals and media that can be part of a computer system are discussed in this section. See Figure 3.14 .
Input technologies now provide a more natural user interface for computer users.
You can enter data and commands directly and easily into a computer system through pointing devices like electronic mice and touch pads and with technologies like optical scanning, handwriting recognition, and voice recognition. These developments have made it unnecessary to record data on paper source documents (e.g., sales order forms) and then keyboard the data into a computer in an additional data-entry step. Further improvements in voice recognition and other technologies should