What Is a Peripheral In a Computer?

What Is a Peripheral in a Computer?

The peripheral devices in the computer are the additional or supplementary devices that are being utilized to put information into and also get information from the computers. The term peripheral is related to all the hardware parts that are being connected or plugged into the computers and these are operated by the computer system. The peripheral is not the central component of the computer, for example, the central processing unit and the power supply unit. Briefly, the peripheral device is defined as additional devices that are connected to the computer and easily removed from it when needed.

Depending on the relationship with the computers the several categories of peripheral devices are identified such as,

• Input devices
• Output devices
• Input and output devices

Input devices:

An input device is a tool that provides information and the signals to the processing system. The input devices are a game controller, mouse, image scanner, keyboards, light gun, webcam and light pen, and graphics tablets.

Output devices:

Output devices provide information from computers. It also converts the information into human acceptable form. the output devices include a computer, printer, monitor, computer speakers, and headphones.

Input/output device:

These devices perform the functions such as computer storage devices includes (a USB flash drive, memory card, disk drive, tape drive), multifunctional printers, modems, and network adapters.

The peripheral devices are connected to the computer by various standards. For example, the SATA (serial advanced technology attachment) is the most common bus for magnetic disk drives. A bus is also called either parallel or serial based on the path the data caries either use the serial (one bit at a time) or the parallel (many at once). USB (universal serial bus) is the common serial bus.