Input and Output

Ergonomic Keyboard

Ergonomic keyboard is a type of keyboard that is split. These keyboards are made mainly to help people solve any problems they have with their wrists. Keyboards like these are not guaranteed to completely solve the problem, however it gives the user more comfort when typing.

Ink-jet Printer

Ink-jet printer is a type of printer that sprays ink on papers. Ink-jet printers are able to print in black and white and also in colours. These printers spray very small droplets of liquid (ink) onto a paper to create an image. The dots are extremely small, have very precise positions and contain different colours to create quality images.

Laser Printer

A laser printer is similar to that of a photocopy machine, the difference is that a photocopy machine uses a bright line to scan, however, a laser printer uses laser to scan. A laser printer basically uses a laser beam to project an image on a drum. Laser printers are generally faster than ink-jet printers and are used to produce an output of higher quality.

Magnetic-ink Character Recognition (MICR)

Magnetic-ink Character Recognition, also known as MICR uses ink that is magnetically chargable or toner to print numbers and special characters. It is usually used to print on the bottom of checks or other financial transaction documents. Numbers that are printed are usually account number from which the money will be drawn or transit of the cheque. MICR is more widely used in the banking industry because it allows fast and reliable document processing. 

Optical-character Recognition (OCR)

OCR is where a computer recognizes printed or written text characters. This involves photoscaning of the text by characters, analysis of the scanned-in image and translation of the character images into codes. For example, ASCII which is commonly used in data processing. For OCR processing, the scanned-in image is analyzed to identify each character or digit, then it is converted into a ASCII code. OCR is also used by libraries to digitize and preserve their holdings.

Optical-mark Recognition

Optical-mark Recognition, also known as OMR, is the process of capturing marked data (by humans) from document forms such as survey forms and test papers. OMR generally works with a scanner device that shines a beam of light onto the paper. The contrasting reflectivity on a page is then used to detect the marked areas because they reflect less light than the blank areas of the paper. OMR is more commonly used in schools to mark MCQ's, also known as multiple choice questions.