Date First Published: 30th June 2023
Topic: Computer Systems
Subtopic: Computer Hardware
Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions
Difficulty: EasyDifficulty Level: 3/10
Learn about what an output device is in this article.
An output device is any physical hardware device that receives incoming data from a digital device and outputs it to the user. The most commonly used output devices are the monitor and the printer, but there are lots of others that receive output and display it in a visual or auditory format, or for physical reproduction. Using an output device allows users to see the results of input from a computer.
It is not possible to list every output device that exists here, but below are 13 of the most common ones.
At first, a signal is sent from the input device to the computer. Afterwards, the computer processes the input and sends a new signal to the output device. The output device then receives the signals from the computer and uses that signal to display the output. The information is converted into a human-perceptible form. Historically, it was converted to a physical machine-readable form for use with other non-computerised equipment.
Output devices are a type of peripheral device. This means that without them, the primary device can still work, but without them, it would be very difficult to use them. For example, a computer turned on with no output device connected to it would be quite useless, since there would be no way of knowing what it is doing without the monitor connected to it.
The types of computers that most commonly run without output devices are servers, since the role of these is to send data over a network. A number of protocols exist to determine the operational status and to control the server from a remote location without having a local display device, including Telnet and SSH.
The main difference between an output device and an input device is that an output device, like a monitor or speakers, only receives the output of data from the primary device, but it cannot input data to another device for processing. An input device, like a keyboard or mouse, sends data to another primary device, but cannot receive data from another device.
Input devices can accept data sent from the user and send it to another device, whilst output devices cannot do this. Instead, output devices can only receive incoming data from the primary device. For example, a computer monitor outputs electronic images, text, and videos from the computer (primary device), but does not send any information to the computer.
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