Optical memory uses light beam for its operation. It is developed in fourth
generation of computer. It is mainly used for storing audio/video, backup as
well as for carrying data. It requires optical drive for its operation. Its
read/write speed is slower compared to hard disk and flash memories.
Example: CD, DVD, BD
CD
It stands for Compact Disk. It has storage capacity of 700 MB or approximately
90 minutes of standard audio. CD contains hard circular plastic, single side of
this plastic is coated by aluminum alloy. This alloy stores data. It is
protected by additional thin plastic covering. CD required CD drive for its
operation. Types of CD are:
CD-R is a blank CD in which data can be stored once. After storing data it is
converted into CD-ROM.
CD-ROM
It cannot be erased or updated
CD-RW
It is an optical disk stands for compact disk re-writeable. it can be erased
and used for multiple times.
DVD
It stands for Digital Versatile Disk. It has the storage capacity of 4.7GB to
17GB. Its shape and size is similar to CD but the difference in storage
capacity is due to different chemical component and data is compressed before
storing. It requires DVD drive for its operation. Read/write speed of DVD is
slower than that of CD. Types of DVD are:
DVD-R
DVD-ROM
DVD-RW
DVD can also be classified as:
Single sided single layered DVD (4.7GB)
Single sided dual layered DVD (7-8GB)
Dual sided single layered DVD (9GB)
Dual sided dual layered DVD (17GB)
BD
It stands for Blue ray disk. It has the storage capacity of 25GB-50GB. It
requires BD drive for its operation. Its shape and size is similar to CD and
DVD. Types of BD are:
BD-R
BD-ROM
BD-RW
Working
mechanism of CD
The surface of the CD contains land and pit. Land represents binary 1 and pit
represents binary 0. During CD reading process a beam of light is emitted which
strikes the surface of CD and gets reflected. The reflection is captured by
lens in the CD drive. Difference in reflection from land and pit is identified
to determine 1 and 0. Land is actually in a crystalline form and pit is in
amorphous form. The size of land and pit is smaller in DVD compared to CD.
External memory devices:
• Zip disk
It is a magnetic memory. It is thee modification of floppy disk. It has the
storage capacity of 100MB and 250MB. It requires Zip disk drive for its
operation.
• Jaz disk
It is also a magnetic memory. It has the storage capacity of 2GB. It also
requires separate Jaz disk drive for its operation.
• Super disk
It is also a magnetic memory. It has the storage capacity of 120MB. It requires
Super disk drive for its operation. Both floppy and super disk can be used in
super disk drive.
•
Pen drive
It is a flash memory. It is a semi-conductor memory. It is mainly used for
transferring data. It has faster read/write speed compared to magnetic memory.
Pen drive has storage capacity of few MB-GB. A pen drive is a plug and play
device. A pen drive can be connected with the computer through USB port.
4. What are output device? Explain in details.
Output Device
Those
devices which are used to display result after processing in a human
understandable language either in hardcopy form or softcopy form is known as
output device. Example: Monitor, Printer, Plotter, Speaker and projector, etc.
Soft copy: The result or
information which are not permanent and produce by using monitor, speaker,
projector. It can be edited and deleted as required.
Monitor
It is also known as VDU (Visual Display Unit). It is the most basic output
device. It is used to display the output. Types of monitor on the basis of
color display are:
1. Monochrome monitor
It is a single colored monitor. It can display only text and images of a single
color against a contrasting background. The first monitor displayed text and
images of light green color against black background.
2. Gray
scale monitor
It can display 256 different variations of black and white color. It can also
display video. The first television set was gray scale.
3. Color
monitor
It can display 16-42 million colors. It uses 3 basic colors Red, Blue and
Green. All the other colors are the combination of these colors. Color monitor
is also known as RGB monitor.
Types of monitor on the basis of architecture:
4. CRT
Monitor
CRT is the large bulky sized monitor. It has high power requirement so it is
not appropriate for portable devices. It is cheaper and has better brightness so,
it is preferred by graphic designers.
Merits of
CRT monitor are:
Ø It has better brightness.
Ø It is cheaper in cost.
Ø It is more durable.
Ø It has better graphics and larger viewing angle (~180)
De-merits of CRT monitor are:
Ø Due to its high brightness human eyes are negatively affected.
Ø It requires high power.
Ø It is large in size so occupies more space.
Ø It is not portable.
5. Flat
panel monitor
a. LED
LED contains multiple small bulbs. The contents are displayed by turning the
bulbs “on” and “off”. Initially it was used only for simple digital displays
like in calculator, digital watch, etc. At present it is also used in
television, desktop PC, laptop, etc.
Merits of
LED are:
Ø It is light in weight so, it can be used in portable devices.
Ø It requires less power.
Ø It is small in size.
Ø Its viewing angle is larger compared to LCD.
De-merits of LED are:
Ø It has low brightness but is better than LCD and plasma.
Ø It is expensive compared to CRT.
Ø It is difficult to maintain.
b. LCD
LCD contains liquid crystals in between two plates of the screen. The plates
are made by either glass or plastic. The front plate is transparent and the
back plate is reflective. Liquid crystals are charged electronically to display
the content. This monitor is popular for portable devices because of its small
size, light weight, low power requirement however it has low brightness and it
requires viewing angle of almost 90.
Merits of
LCD:
Ø It is small in size.
Ø It is light in weight.
Ø It has low power requirements so, can be used in portable devices.
Ø It is cheaper than LED and plasma display.
De-merits of LCD:
Ø It has low brightness.
Ø It is expensive compared to CRT.
Ø It requires viewing angle of almost 90.
c. Plasma display
It contains neon gas in between the two plates of the screen in place of liquid
crystals of LCD. It has larger viewing angle but is expensive than LCD. It is
smaller in size, light in weight and it has low power requirement and low
brightness.
Merits of
plasma display:
Ø It is smaller in size and light in weight.
Ø It has low power requirement so can be used in portable devices.
Ø It has larger viewing angle.
De-merits of plasma display:
Ø It has low brightness.
Ø It is expensive than LCD.
Working
mechanism of CRT:
A monochrome CRT contains single electron gun which emits beam of electrons.
These electrons are attached towards positive phosphorous screen. When an
electron strikes the screen it glows and emits light. A small area in which an
electron strikes is known as pixel. To display a screen all the pixel are
striked by electrons. Accelerating anode varies the speed of the electron and
deflecting system changes the path of the electron.
A color CRT monitor contains three electron guns which emits three electrons at
a time. These electrons converge in the same pixel to display a color.
Speaker:
Speaker is a soft copy output device for audio. It generates analog sound wave
from stored digital sound by using vibrators. Different types of speakers vary
on the loudness of sound generated. Some of the speakers used are:
• Ear phone
• Head phone
• Normal speaker
• Woofer
• Loud speaker
Hard copy output devices: The output device which
are permanent and displays by printer and plotter. It can’t be altered and
deleted.
• Printer
Printer makes the permanent impression of color on the printing material like
paper, plastic, clothes, rubber, metal, etc. A printer can be single or
multi-colored. Types of printer are:
Ø Impact printer
It prints by physically touching the printing material. It is noisier, slower
for printing, single colored. It produces low quality output. It is usually
cheaper and it can produce multiple copies at the same time by using carbon
paper. It uses ink ribbon for printing.
Example:
• Dot matrix printer
• Daisy wheel printer
• Line printer
Dot matrix
printer
• It is an impact type character printer. It prints character by the
combination of dots where each dot is printed when the hammer strikes the
printing material. It can print both image and text of different font and size.
It is appropriate for low volume printing. It is usually available in three
operating modes: fast, medium and slow. Faster speed will have low printing
quality.
• Merits:
• It can print both image and text of different font and size.
• Its operating cost is low.
• It can print multiple copies at the same time using carbon paper.
•
•
De-merits:
• It is noisy, slower.
• It has low printing quality.
• It can print single color only.
• It is not appropriate for large volume printing.
Daisy wheel printer
• It is an impact type character printer. It can only print text of fixed size
and font. It contains separate hammer for each character so it is also know as
letter quality printer. Its printing quality is better than dot matrix printer.
It is faster than dot matrix printer. It is rarely used at present.
• Merits:
• Its printing quality is better than dot matrix printer.
• It is faster than dot matrix printer.
• It can print multiple copies at the same time using carbon paper.
•
•
De-merits:
• It can print text of fixed size and font.
• It is noisy, slower than non-impact printers.
• It has low printing quality than non-impact printers.
• It can print a single color.
• It is not appropriate for large volume printing.
• It can’t print images.
Non impact
printer
it prints without touching the printing material. It sprays liquid or powder
ink. It uses electromagnetic or electrostatic mechanism. It is noiseless, faster
for printing usually expensive, it has high printing quality, it can be single
or multi-colored, it cannot produce multiple copies at the same time.
Example: ink jet printer
It is non impact type character printer. It uses liquid ink for printing. It can
be single or multi-colored. Multi-colored ink jet printer can use either RGB
colors or CYMK (cyan, yellow, magenta, black). This printer uses dot-matrix
approach for printing i.e. a dot is formed by spraying liquid ink. Series of
dots are used tp print characters and images. It is cheaper to buy but its
operating cost is expensive due to expensive ink. So, it is appropriate only
for low volume printing.
Merits:
- It is not noisy and is faster than impact printers.
- It can be both single and multi-colored.
- It is cheaper to buy.
- It can print both text and images.
- Its printing quality is better than impact printers.
De-merits:
- Its operating cost is high.
-It is appropriate for low volume printing only.
- It can’t produce multiple copies at the same time.
-It is not appropriate for continuous printing.
laser printer
It is non-impact type page printer. It uses powder ink (toner) for printing. It
is expensive to buy but its operating cost is low. So, it is appropriate for
large volume printing. Multi-colored laser printer is larger in size and they
are slower and expensive. It can print about 30 pages per minute.
Merits:
- It is not noisy and is faster than impact printer.
- It can be both single and multi-colored.
- Its operating cost is low.
-It can print both text and images.
- Its printing quality is better than impact printer.
De-merits:
v It is expensive to buy.
v It can’t print multiple copies at the same time.
It is not appropriate for continuous printing.
Thermal wax printer.
Printer can also be classified as:
Ø Character printer
Ø Line printer
Ø Page printer
• Plotter:
It is large sized printer. It is used to plot large maps, designs,
advertisements, etc. It is multi-colored, slow for printing, expensive and
large in size. Paper, plastic (mainly flex) is used as printing material. It
uses technology like ink jet technology, color pen technology. Ink jet
technology uses liquid ink whereas color pen technology uses multi colored pens
controlled by the mechanical arm. Ink jet is cheaper and color pen has better
printing quality. Different plotters in use are:
Ø Drum plotter
Ø Flat bed plotter