OUTPUT DEVICE

An Output device is an electromechanical device that accepts data from a computer and translate them into a form suitable for use by outside world (users).

Output can be in the form of soft copy or hard copy.

Soft copy refers to the digital copy which lies on storage device.

Hard Copy refers to the printed contents on a paper or some material.

We classify them broadly into following categories:

1.Monitor: Monitor is a standard output device. It is known as VDU (Visual Display Unit) or screen. Monitor is used for interactive processing mean the data being fed is displayed on the screen. It looks like as a television.

Some of common types of monitors are:

i)CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) – The ‘Cathode Ray Tube’ is the picture tube of monitor. It is a vacuum tube that contains a negatively charged cathode that shoots electrons at the back of positively charged screen.

ii)LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) – LCD monitor is the advanced form of CRT Monitors. A cold cathode ray and the fluorescent panel are two major components of the LCD. The cold cathode ray technology is used in LCD which emits electron and light up the fluorescent coated monitor screen. The process is known as backlighting.

iii)LED (Light Emitting Diode) – LED is an improved version over LCD monitors. Both the monitors are based on the same display technology and provide better resolution, but in LED monitors are based on ‘Light Emitting Diode’. LED monitors consume less electricity as compared to CRT and LCD monitors.

2.Printer: Printer is a common output device which is used for the purpose of printing documents. Printer generates a hard copy of data or information.

   Printers can be categorized on based

1)             Quality of Printing

2)            Speed

3)            Printing Mechanism

3.Plotter:  Plotter is an output device that helps in printing high quality graphics, visuals, charts, graphs, tables and diagram etc. It can draw continuous lines and can produce output on paper, polyester film or colored transparencies. In plotter the figures are drawn by an electronic pen which is driven by a motor. It uses inkjet cartridges (single or multi-colored) to spray colours for drawing and sketching.

Plotter is mostly used in CAD (Computer Aided Design), CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing), Printing Banners and Flex. Plotters can be classified into four categories:

i)      Flatbed Plotter

ii)  Drum Plotter

iii) Micro- graphic Plotter

iv)   Inkjet Plotter

4.Screen image Projector:  Screen image projector is an output device, which is used to project information from a computer on a large screen so that a group of people can view it simultaneously. It is very useful for making presentation to a group of people with direct use of a computer.

5. Speaker: Speaker is an output device that convers electric signal into sound waves that we hear. In Speaker electric current of the music files is supplied to the magnet that pushes the diaphragm of the speaker back and forth which creates pressure and vibration in the air and that produces sound.