PERIPHERALS the accessories you plug into your computer are usually called peripherals.

the name is a carryover from the early beginnings of computers hen the parts of a computer that did not actually compute ere located some distance from the central processing unit! on the periphery. input devices you can communicate ith your pc! telling it hat to do! using t o primary input devices! the "eyboard and the mouse. the "eyboard remains the most efficient ay to enter te#ts into applications! faster than even the most advanced voice recognition system that let you tal" to your pc. the mouse! more correctly termed a pointing device! relays graphic instructions to your computer. if you ant to s"etch images directly onto your monitor screen! a digiti$ing tablet or"s more as you ould or" ith a pen. to transfre images to your pc! a scanner can be used to convert graphics into bit%images. ith the right soft are! it can become an optical character recognition! or &'R system! that reads te#t and transforms ords into eletronic form. a voice recognition! or voice input system! used a microphone to turn the sound aves of your voice into electrical signals! a processing board that ma"es those signals digital! and sophisticated sot are that attempts to discern the individual ords you(re spo"en from the digital signal. display systems your indo into the mind of your pc is its display system! the combination of a graphics adapter or video board and monitor or flat%panel dislay. the display system gives your pc the means to tell you hat it is thin"ing! to slo you your data in the form that you best understand! be it numbers! ords or pictures. the t o halves of the dislpay system or" hand%in%hand. the graphics adapter uses the digital signals inside your pc to build a map of hat the final image should loo" li"e! storing the data for every dot on your monitor in memory. electronics generate the image that appears on your monitor screen or flat panel display. more than any other aspect of computing! printer technology has transformed the industry in the last decade. here printers ere once the offspring of type riters! they(ve noe entered the space age ith )ets and lasers. the modern pc printer is usually a high speed! high *uality laser printer that creates ten or more pages per minute at a *uality level that rivals commercial printing. in")et printers sacrifice the utmost in speed and *uality for lo er cost and the capability of printing colour ithout depleting the green in your budget.