DIGITAL DEVICES

TYPES OF DIGITAL DEVICES

There are many types of digital devices. They range from very powerful mainframe
computer, used by large organizations for complex processing tasks such as statistical
analysis and bulk data processing, to microprocessors used to control washing machines,
televisions and other household appliances. Examples of the devices you will consider
include personal computers, digital cameras and home entertainment systems.

Mainframe – are large powerful computers that can do a lot of complicated jobs quickly
and can be used by a lot of people at the same time.
Microprocessor – they are devices that control what a computer does. It takes data as
input, does something (process) and provides output.

Digital devices include:

 Personal computers  Navigation aids
 Mobile phones  Home automation devices and
 Tablets smart assistants
 Cameras and camcorders  Multifunctional devices and
 Home entertainment systems convergence
 Games consoles
 Media players

1. PERSONAL COMPUTERS
A personal computer is a general-purpose computer whose size and capabilities make it
useful for individuals. They are common in homes and offices.
a) Desktops – they have more space for components than laptops and often provide users
with the option to upgrade them or add additional components. Peripheral devices are
connected to it, such as a monitor, a printer, a mouse and a keyboard.
b) Laptops – Include a keyboard, a screen, a track pad and a rechargeable battery. Having
these features means that they can be taken away from the desk, which makes them an
example of a portable device.
c) Single-board computers – they are affordable computers used in education, embedded
computing projects and physical computing projects.
Terminologies:
 Peripherals - are any hardware (input or output) connected to a computer and used
with it.
 Embedded computing – this involves computing hardware that if fixed into position
(within a device) and carries out a specialist task.
 Physical computing – these are interactive systems that can sense and respond to
the world around them.

2. Mobile Phones
Mobile phones use a SIM card to connect to a mobile phone network. SIM stands for
Subscriber Identity Module, and a SIM card is used to identify the subscriber to a mobile
phone network.
a) Specialist Phones – Some mobile phones have specialist features to provide users with
functions that meet particular user needs. For example, some phones have an emergency
button that is linked to a list of emergency contacts. When this button is pressed, the
phone will call each person on the list until someone answers.
Other phones meet users’ accessibility needs. For example the Alto2 ‘talking phone’ is a
specialist phone for blind and partially sighted people. It meets its users’ need because
every feature and function is spoken aloud. Other phones provide fewer, larger buttons
and connections for hearing aids.
b) Smartphone – are small computers with wi-fi and mobile connectivity to allow them to
make phone calls and access the internet. They also include features of other devices such
as cameras, media players and hand-held games consoles. They have advanced operating
system than other mobile phones. Applications (or apps) can be downloaded onto the
smartphone, which allow users to customize their smartphones with entertainment,
educational and business features. Most smartphones use a touch screen to allow users to
input information. A virtual keyboard is used to enter text, numbers and other
characters.
Because they combine so many features, smartphones use more power than other types of
mobile phone. This means that they have a shorter battery life and need to be charged
more regularly than other mobile phones.

3. TABLETS
Tablet devices or tablets are bigger than smartphones, but have similar features. For
example, a tablet device has a touch screen, apps and wi-fi connectivity to provide access to
the internet. Some tablet devices have SIM card slots to allow internet connectivity using
the mobile phone network, so that they can be online when they are not within range of a
wi-fi signal. They can also be used for calling just as the smartphone and they are usually
called Phablets.

4. CAMERAS AND CAMCORDERS

Digital cameras and camcorders use light sensors to capture images formed by light
passing through the device’s lens. Traditionally, cameras are used to capture still images
and camcorders are used to capture moving images.

The quality of the image captured by the camera depends on;

a) The quality of the lens
b) a good image processor
c) a good resolution of the sensor
Resolution is the number of pixels used by a screen to display an image.
Pixel is a small dot of light that helps to make up an image.
5. HOME ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEMS
 Televisions
 Sound systems
 Personal video recorders
 Blu-ray and DVD players

a) Televisions – display still and moving images on the screen. The quality of the image is
set by the number of pixels that are used to display the image. This is referred to as
resolution.
 HD (High Definition) contain a larger number of pixels.
 UHD (Ultra HD) sometimes referred to as 4K or 8K because they have a horizontal
resolution of approximately 4,000 or 8,000 pixels.
Resolution is stated as horizontal pixels x vertical pixels
Eg 1280 x 720
Smart televisions use apps and can download and stream content from the internet.
b) Sound systems – can produce loud, rich sound using high-quality speakers and
amplifiers. Some speakers have built-in amplifiers. They can usually be connected to
personal devices like smartphones, media players using wired connections like USB or
wireless connections like Bluetooth or wifi.
c) Personal Video Recorders(PVR) – is a device that records broadcasted content so that
is can be watched at a later date.
d) Blu-ray and DVD Players – connect to televisions in order to play films and other
content that is stored on DVD or Blu-ray disks. Blu-ray players will usually play DVD disks,
but DVD players will not play Blu-ray disks.

6. GAMES CONSOLES
These are designed to enable users to play video games on a television screen. Games are
provided on disks or as downloads from the internet.
Some consoles use motion sensors to allow the player to control the game with gestures
and body movements.
Modern games consoles are multifunctional, may have apps and connectivity that provide
access to local networks and the internet as well as the option to play movies and music.
Handheld versions of games consoles provide mobile gaming.

7. MEDIA PLAYERS
Media players provide video and audio content to a television. This content could be
streamed directly from the internet or accessed from networked or local storage. Media
players can be connected to a television directly or using a wired or wireless network.
Personal media players are compact, portable devices with local storage to hold media files
for playback.
8. NAVIGATION AIDS
Navigation aids can calculate the best route between two or more locations and can
provide updates to the route if it is not followed
correctly. They use information from GPS satellites
to determine the exact location of the device on
Earth. Navigation aids also use orientation sensors
to know which way the device is currently pointing,
and the device will display the user’s position and
orientation on a map.
They are used by; walkers, cyclists, runners, in cars,
delivery vans and ships.

9. HOME AUTOMATION DEVICES AND SMART

ASSISTANTS
Functions can be controlled from apps on smartphones or the internet. Functions like
turning on lights, adjusting temperature in the room etc. Home automation devices can
connect a range of digital devices which sense and control functions in the home.
10.MULTIFUNCTIONAL DEVICES
A multifunctional device is a device that can perform a range of different functions. E.g. a
smartphone can act as a navigation aid, fitness tracker, music player or handheld game
console.

CONVERGENCE
This is when the designs of devices change so that they become similar to one another. E.g
smartphones and tablet devices, bigger smartphones look more like tablet devices, known
as Phablets. Tablet devices can now connect to mobile phone networks.

Revision Questions
1. Define the following terms:
a) Microprocessor

b) Peripheral devices
c) Embedded computing

2. Give the difference of traditional use of Camera and camcorder.

3. Give 3 features of smartphones

4. For critical thinking, give some activities for which a standard mobile phone would be
more suitable to use than a smartphone
FEATURES OF DIGITAL DEVICES
1. PORTABILITY – This means that the device is easy to carry and move around.
Portability is directly related to size and weight.
2. PERFORMANCE – this is the ability of a device to perform its job or tasks quickly. The
speed at which it can carry out instructions from its software.
3. STORAGE – Files and programs are stored in storage. Storage speed also affects
performance.
4. USER INTERFACE – This helps the user to give commands to a device through the user
interface. There are several different types of user interfaces:
a) COMMAND LINE INTERFACE (CLI) – In this type of interface the user has to
enter instructions to the computer system by typing the commands. This type of
interface is often found on older systems or for devices with limited storage.
b) MENU-DRIVEN INTERFACE – This type of interface displays a list of options as a
menu. Selecting one of these options will either trigger a command or display
another menu with further options to choose from.
C) GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE (GUI) – It is usually controlled by a pointer on
the screen and uses a screen made up of windows, icons and menus.
i. Windows – these are areas of the screen that are dedicated to applications or
operating system tasks.
ii. Icons – are small images that represent an application. It can be selected with the
pointer.
iii. Menus provide options for tasks relating to the operating system or open
application.
D) VOICE INTERFACE – allows the user to give spoken commands to a device. The
device has voice recognition software which matches the spoken words against a
library of words to find a match.
E)GESTURE INTERFACE – This type of interface allows the user to control the
device by swiping their finger or fingers across the screen, or by pinching their
fingers together to zoom in or out.
5. CONNECTIVITY – devices can share data by connecting to each other using wired or
wireless connectivity. Different connectivity types provide different speeds of data transfer
and levels of convenience.
6. MEDIA SUPPORT – different devices can read data from and write data to different
types of media. Examples of media include SD and microSD flash memory cards, and dvds.
7. ENERGY CONSUMPTION – Digital devices require electricity to work. One benefit of
lower energy consumption in mobile devices is a longer battery life. Due to the rising cost
of energy and pressure from customers and governments to be more environmentally
responsible, manufactures are creating digital devices that consume less energy.
8. EXPANSION CAPABILITY -Some PCs allow users to install additional components. Some
smartphones and tablet devices have expansion slots to allow them to make use of flash
memory cards.
9. SECURITY FEATURES – data stored on digital devices may be private, valuable or both.
This means that devices need to have security features to keep their user’s data safe.
a) Software security – this is set by the operating systems include options like; PINs,
passwords, Pattern PINs biometric scanners(finger print scanner) etc.
b) Physical security – many devices use security slots which can have locks attached to
secure them to furniture.

TYPES OF PERIPHERAL DEVICES

Peripheral devices are devices that can be connected to a computer.
They can be grouped into three:
 Input
 Output
 Storage
INPUT DEVICES
These are devices that send data to the computer. They are;
1. KEYBOARDS
They use buttons known are keys, which users press to input text or to interact
with software.
2. POINTING DEVICES
A pointer is used on a screen to select displayed objects. Types of pointing devices
are:
 Mouse
 Tracker ball
 Track pad
 Joystick
  Graphics Tablet
3. SCANNER – Use light sensors to record physical documents as images, which
are then saved as files to the computer.
Scanners come in to two types of softwares:
 OCR – allows for character input
 OMR – allows for marks input
BARCODE SCANNER
A barcode is a pattern of lines and gaps that can be read by barcode scanners.
The barcode is used to identify an item and hold information about:
 Item Number
 Manufacturer
 Country of origin
The price of the item is not included in the barcode because prices keep changing.
However, the barcode is used to fetch the price from a database, using an
Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) till.
There are two types of barcodes:
 Linear
 Matrix
BIOMETRIC SCANNER
Biometric scanners work by measuring a unique part of the physical
characteristics of a user, often multiple times, until a suitable average result is
produced.
Examples:
 Fingerprint recognition
 Facial recognition
 Voice recognition
 Iris recognition

Biometric eye scanning

CARD READERS
Card readers are used to read data stored on a card that is carried by a user.
Cards can carry data using three methods:
 Magnetic strip
 Programmable chip
 Radio frequency identification (RFID) and Near field Communication (NFC)

SENSORS
Sensors are used to input data about the physical environment.
Benefits of sensors:
 They can be placed in remote or dangerous places.
 They can monitor continually
 They remove the possibility of human error.
  They can sense things that people cannot.
 Data is easily converted to digital form.
There are many different types of sensors to allow for the monitoring of a range
of environmental factors.
 Light
 Moisture and humidity
 Temperature
 Proximity and distance
 Motion and movement
 Pressure
WEBCAM
Webcams are specialized cameras which are low quality than camcorders and
may have in-built microphones to capture sound. They can be used as security
cameras and can stream images or video to the internet.
MICROPHONE
This device is used to capture sound. A microphone converts the electrical signal
to a digital signal with its sound card, which acts as an analogue-to-digital
converter.
TOUCH SCREEN
Touch screens are used in many devices, including smartphones, tablet devices,
laptops and desktop computers. There are two types of touch screen:
 Resistive
 Capacitive
Resistive touch screens- when pressed, the pressure causes two layers
underneath the screen to touch and make a connection. They are more durable
than capacitive but harder to read.
Reasons why resistive touch screens are harder to read:
 More layers reflect more light
 They recognize one touch at a time.
Capacitive touch screens – They have a layer of capacitive material under the
glass. When touched a small amount of charge flows away from their finger
because humans are conductive. They offer more precise location at which the
screen was touched.
REVISION QUESTIONS
1. Give two types of touch screens
2. Give two reasons why resistive touch screens are harder to read.
3. Describe webcams
4. Give 5 benefits of sensors.

OUTPUT DEVICES
Output peripherals are connected to a computer and output the results of the computer’s
processing in various forms. They include;
 Electronic display
 Printed text
 Video
 Audio
 Tactile (touch) forms.
1. MONITOR
Monitors receives signals from the computer and displays that information for the user to
view.
Features of monitors include:
 Screen size, which is measured diagonally
 Resolution, which is measured in pixels
 Energy efficiency measures.
There are many different types of monitors available e.g. CRT, TFT, LCD, Plasma etc
What are the Uses of Monitors?
1. Uses of Monitor for Gaming
2. Uses of Monitor for Word Processing
3. Uses of Monitor for Web Browsing
4. Uses of Monitor for Data Entry
5. Uses of Monitor in Business
6. Sending & Receiving Emails
7. For surveillance
PRINTERS
These are used to produce output on paper (hard copy). Printers have different printing
speeds. They can be categorized as follows:
 Character printers ( print one character at a time) e.g dotmatrix
 Line printers (print a line at a time) e.g inkjet
 Page printers (print a page at a time) e.g laser printers
Printer can be Impact or nonimpact.
Impact printers – the print is made by hitting or ‘impacting’ the paper through a ribbon of
ink. The printers are very noisy.
Non impact printers – this type of printer does not hit or impact a ribbon to print rather
uses technology to place the print on paper. This makes them much quieter than impact
printers.
TYPES OF PRINTERS
DOTMATRIX- a type of impact printer. The paper used often has a number of carbon copy
layers so it can make several copies of the same document as it prints it.

INKJET PRINTERS – Use cartridges containing different coloured ink. They are much faster
than dotmatrix printers.
LASER PRINTERS
These printers contain a rotating cylinder or drum that holds an electrical charge.

3D PRINTERS
Three-dimensional(3D) printers create real-life versions of digital models. These printers
work by adding layers of heated materials from the bottom of the model all the way to the
top. 3D-printed models take a long time to create.

2. PLOTTER
Plotters use moving pens across a paper to draw lines and some other plotters roll the
paper backwards and forwards. The plotter draws high-quality images created in
Computer Aided Design (CAD).
3. DATA PROJECTOR
A projector is an output device that takes images generated by a computer or Blu-ray
player and reproduce them by projection onto a screen, wall, or another surface.
They have the following features:
Light bulbs: can have various brightness levels
Resolution: How fine the image is on the screen
Zoom functionality: Image can be made larger by enlarging the image using either optical
zoom or digital zoom.
Portability: Some smaller ones are easier to move around with.
SPEAKER
Speakers allow a computer to output sound. Can often come in pairs to provide stereo
sound.
CONTROL DEVICE
Control devices are components of a system that make something happen in the real
physical world. They are also known as actuators. A normal PC has no way of affecting what
is happening around it. It can’t turn on the lights, or make the room hotter.
Examples of actuators or control devices include: