The paper discusses, analyzes and talks about specialized output devices available for
computer systems. It describes about their features and operations. The uses of various
output devices have been probed and dwelled into.
Output Devices
According to Dictionary.com, ‘Output device is an Electronic or electromechanical
equipment connected to a computer and used to transfer data out of the computer in the
form of text, images, sounds or other media.’ (1997).
Output devices are as vital as any input devices and probably more. They present the
output of the computers to us in human readable form. There are various kinds of Output
devices available as listed below:
Monitors: Monitors are screens which display computer output data. Monitors are also
known as Visual Display Units and are capable of showing outputs in multiple forms like
Images, Videos etc. The data on Monitors is represented in the form of pixels. Primarily
there are two categories of Monitors available:
1) Cathode Ray tubes 2) Flat Panel Displays
Printers: Printer is an output device that produces hard or physical copy of the output data
measured in the terms of DPI. There are several kinds of printers available like Inkjet
printers, laser printers.
Speakers: Speakers are used to obtain audio output from the computer. Most of the
computers either come with inbuilt or separate speakers. There are again various types of
speakers available suiting various requirements of the user.
Plotters: Plotters are very similar to printers, but unlike printers it draws images with one
or more ink pens. It is akin to a graphics printer used to make graphs, maps etc. Though not
as common as printers, plotters are important output devices. Two types of plotters are
Drum and Flatbed Plotters.
Though there are many other output devices available in the market like Modem, Voice
Synthesizer, Voice-Output devices; they are not specialized output devices. The output
devices listed above are truly specialized output devices.
Dictionary.com. (1997). Output Device. Retrieved November 16, 2012,
