Input Devices

When we talk about the computer, we must talk about the data, data processing and information. And to enter data in computer for processing and results first, we need some devices. So, all the devices used to enter the data (in any form) are called input devices. First it is compulsory to describe that there are four forms of data. These types are Text, Image, Audio and Video. Now, we have different devices to enter these four types of data. Here we discuss most commonly used these input devices.
Key Boards

The most commonly used input device is “Key Board”. The Key Board is used to mostly enter text data type. The first line of buttons on Key Boards (in most key boards) is function buttons key. These function keys are from F1 to Pause/Break key button. These function keys are shortcut keys to execute different commands according to the software and operating systems. For example in most applications F1 key is used to get some help and F2 key is used to execute the exe etc. on the top left corner we find the escape key, mostly used to skip some commands or to have escape from previous screen.
Then there on the Key Board, we find a Tab Key. This tab key used to set stops on the paper. Caps Lock key used to turn on and off the Upper and Lower case of alphabet character (A – Z). If it turned to on, the character will be typed in the upper case and when it pressed to off (if the light under the Caps Lock button is turned on it means its turned to on and if that light is off it means that caps lock is turned off) the characters will be typed in lower case. Shift Key works with the combination with other keys available on the keyboard. If we press any character + shift key the character will be typed in the upper case. Ctrl Key also works with the combination of other keys. This key is mostly used to run commands according to the software commands. Alt Key also works with the combination of other keys. This key is mostly used to run commands according to the software commands. Back Space and Del Keys used to erases one character. Different in both keys is only it that the Del Key erases one right character from cursor where as the Back Space key erases one character from the left side of current cursor position. Enter Key is used to execute the programs and also used to start typing from anew line. End Key used to move the cursor at the end of current line where as Home Key move the cursor at the start of current line. Arrow Keys there are four arrow keys on the Keyboards. Right arrow, Left arrow, up arrow and the Down Arrow. Right arrow move the cursor one space right to the current position of the cursor, Left arrow moves the cursor towards the one left character. Up arrow moves the cursor to up line and down arrow moves the cursor towards next down line. Page Up and Page Down as the p arrow key moves cursor to next up line, page up move the cursor to the next page up and page down moves the cursor to the next down page. Ins key, when pushed on, it over-writes the per-existing characters. Print Screen used to print/the current screen in image form and the Scroll Key is used to scrolled all text and images appears on the screen but not let the cursor to scroll. Pause Key used to pause the swiftly moving information. For example, if we type dir in the Dos. Mode computer will show the list of directories and files too fast that we can’t read this information. So, we can pause this information until we read it. And there are also alphabets from A to Z, numeric keys from 0 to 9 and finally the mathematical operators keys such as +, -, *, etc.
Now, the multimedia Keyboards are also available in the market. In these multimedia Keyboards we have play/pause/still/stop/forward/rewind/volume up. Volume down function keys is available for audio and video format files. The next type of input devices is Pointing Devices.
Mouse is the most common example of pointing devices. It looks like a mouse and it moves the cursor as we move it. In which direction we will move mouse, the cursor will also move towards that direction. There are also two click points available on the mouse. One is called right click and the other is called the left click. When we want to open/execute any icon, we position the cursor to that icon with the movement of mouse and then we will click the button to complete the task. We can also select the text and images with mouse. In some mouse, we find a scrolling wheel in the middle of right and left clicking points. Scrolling this wheel we can scroll the screen to up and down.
Track Ball mostly used on the laptops. It is just like a moveable ball and we move the cursor with the movement of this track ball.
Pointing Stick looks like a pencil eraser, placed between the G, H and B keys. It also used to move the cursor to our desired position s we move it with our fingers.
Joy Stick is used to control the video games or in other words joystick is a video game controller.
Touch Screen mostly used with laptops as we move our finger over the touch screen the cursor also move towards that directions.
Light Pen is just like a pen connected with computer with a wire (wireless light pens are also available) as we position it to our desired position; we press a button on it to perform our desired task.
Pen Based System with the help of this device we are able to directly put data in our handwriting as we write, our writing stores in computer.

There is another family of input devices which is called the “Direct Input Devices” using these devices we can very fast input our data with less struggle. Most commonly input devices are Scanners, Digital Cameras and Microphone. Scanners scan the data and directly store it in the computer we can scan and images papers etc. Scanners converts that papers into digital computer acceptable form and then store it in computer for future use or further process. Other direct input device is Microphone used to store audio data type. It input the all sound/audio data type into computer. And finally we have Digital Cameras, which, we use to input images and video type o data to out computers. We can input our still images as well as our video data types.
So, these are the most commonly used input devices