What Ways Can You Input Data Into a Computer?
Your commands, ideas, demands and concepts form the data your system processes and stores. Without user input, a computer simply takes up desktop space and waits for directions, like a lost motorist with a broken-down car. Without input methods and devices, your correspondence, reports, images and numbers remain in your head rather than becoming work in progress. Your computer can accept input from myriad types of peripheral devices, each designed to accommodate specific types of data.
Wired and wireless data keyboards break down linguistic input and software commands into individual units of meaning. You can type a single letter, combine alphanumeric keys with command keys to produce accented or specialized characters, and enter simple or complex instructions to control software processes. From the traditional QWERTY keyboard, adapted from the typewriter, to layouts such as the Dvorak keyboard, which promotes faster typing, and adapted variations with additional keys, these devices translate finger-based keypresses into data input.
Pointing devices translate taps, gestures and drawing input, either through wired or wireless interfaces. From clicking on a menu with a mouse or trackball, to tapping on a touchpad or touchscreen, or drawing on a graphics tablet, these devices instigate commands and help retouch photographs, create illustrations and simulate the behavior of other devices, including paintbrushes and airbrushes. CAD pucks enable you to establish precise points of reference on an architectural plan or 3D rendering. Recreationally speaking, the world of computer games relies on devices that translate three-dimensional gestures into the world of a flight simulator, fight scene or race track, including joysticks, game pads and driving simulators.
Flash, optical and hard drives store the output of computer processes, but they also provide the input for other functions. From files that contain data to be manipulated to temporary data storage that provides input from a clipboard or program, these devices simplify and speed the act of making information available to software processes. Some of these devices contain moving platters, whereas others rely on solid-state NAND flash chips or inserted writeable/rewriteable optical discs. They may be installed as internal computer components or plugged in to a USB, FireWire or Thunderbolt port.
Computers accept a wide range of audio-data inputs. You can dictate audio input into a headset for use in a text-to-speech program that converts your words into word processing, sing or play a musical instrument into a microphone for recording in an audio file, plug an electronic instrument into your computer for direct input of synthesized sounds or transfer audio from a recording device. To bring visual information into a new or existing document, you can digitize objects or printed information on a two- or three-dimensional scanner, transfer files from a digital camera or combined audio/video input from a camcorder, or record an individual or a surveilled scene captured on a webcam or security camera.
Keyboards, synthesizers and other musical technologies provide computer input in the form of MIDI data. The Musical Instrument Digital Interface specification includes three types of data pathways, received and transmitted through MIDI IN, MIDI OUT and MIDI THRU ports. Instruments plug in to a MIDI IN jack on a computer interface, which plugs in to a USB or other standard data port. Instruments connect into series of daisy-chained devices by means of their MIDI THRU jacks, which enables the output of one piece of hardware to control or influence the behavior of another.
From testing and diagnostic equipment, laboratory measurement devices and manufacturing hardware to assistive technology that makes computers accessible to persons with disabilities, specialized input hardware solves equally specialized problems or overcomes specific challenges. Along with devices designed for medical, scientific, engineering and manufacturing use, these special-purpose input devices include gestural hardware that translates three-dimensional movement of the hands or body into character movement for animation or provides a substitute for conventional pointing devices.
- MIT: Jeff Bigler's Home Page: The Dvorak Keyboard
- Duke University Occupational & Environmental Safety Office, Ergonomics Division: Pointing Devices
- Indiana University Center for Electronic and Computer Music: Introduction to Computer Music: Volume One: Chapter Three: MIDI
- University of North Carolina at Wilmington Digital Library: Microcomputer Hardware -- Part II: 1.4 Input and Output (I/O)
- Cornell University: Mister Gloves -- A Wireless USB Gesture Input System
- University of New Mexico -- Los Alamos: Computer Concepts and Terminology: Input and Output Devices
- University of West Florida: Discovering Computers: Chapter 5: Input
- University of Mississippi: Fundamental Microcomputer Information Technology: Input Devices
- University of Rhode Island Department of Computer Science and Statistics: How Computers Work: Input and Output
Elizabeth Mott has been a writer since 1983. Mott has extensive experience writing advertising copy for everything from kitchen appliances and financial services to education and tourism. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in English from Indiana State University.