Peripheral
For an account of the words periphery
and peripheral
as they are used in biology, sociology, politics, computer hardware, and other fields, see the periphery disambiguation page.A
peripheral is a type of
computer hardware that is added to a host
computer in order to expand its abilities. More specifically the term is used to describe those devices that are optional in nature, as opposed to hardware that is either demanded, or always required in principle.
The term also tends to be applied to devices that are hooked up externally, typically through some form of
computer bus like
USB. Typical examples include
joysticks,
printers and
scanners. Devices such as
monitors and
disk drives are not considered peripherals when they are not truly optional, and
video capture cards are typically not referred to as peripheral because they are internal devices.
*
Storage** Removable (Writes/reads portable media)
***
CD****
CD-ROM****
CD-RW****
CD-R***
DVD****
DVD-ROM****
DVD-RW****
DVD-R***
USB flash drive***
Tape drive***
Floppy disk***
Punch card** Internal
***
Disk array controller*
Input** Manual
***
Keyboard***
Pointing devices
****
Mouse****
Trackball***
Joystick***
Touch screen***
Joypad**
Brain-computer interface**
Image scanner**
Computer terminal**
Computer speech recognition**
Webcam**
Digitizing tablet**
Barcode reader*
Output** Printing
***
Plotter***
Printer***
Braille embosser** Sound
***
Computer speech synthesis***
Sound card***
Speakers***
Microphone** Visual
***
Graphics card***
Monitor**
Refreshable Braille display*
Networking**
Modem**
Network cardDisk drive is a peripheral device used to read from and write to a disk
*
Peripheral device*
Expansion card*
Computer hardware*
Peripherals category in dmoz
