An Input device is any hardware component that allows you to enter data, programs, commands, and user response into a computer.

Traditional Input Devices

Keyboards- 101 key keyboard is the norm.
• Two basic types
• Alphanumeric - which is the kind in labs and most home computers (above).
• special function keyboards-cash registers with pretty pictures that represent items.
Point and Draw devices - the mouse and his family
• "I am here to save the day" Mighty mouse 1974
• Speedy Gonzales, Mickey, Minnie, Itchy, and all the other Mighty Mouse cousins
• Joystick (Mickey)
• Trackball (Speedy) - It's like an upside down mouse.
• Mouse Pen (Itchy)
• The laptop side of the family (rats)
• Trackpoints
• Trackpad
• Pen computing - handheld computers (Palm Pilots).
Source Data Automation - Collecting data where it starts and sending it directly to the computer. .

I. Scanners

A. OCR and Bar Codes- optical character recognition
My motion capture stage research - input of motion using OCR.
B. OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) Scantrons you test on.
C. MICR - (Magnetic-ink character recognition) -Checks in a bank.
1. Contact and Laser - two types
a. Hand-held

b. stationary label scanners

c. Document scanners

2. Image Scanners
How an opical scanner works
Step 1 - The document to be scanned is put in the scanner
Step 2 - A bright light moves underneath the scanned document
Step 3 - An image of the document is reflected back into a series of       mirrors.
Step 4 - The light is converted to an analog electrical current by a chip called a charge-coupled device.
Step 5 - The analog signal is converted to a digital signal by a device called an analog to digital converter.
Step 6 - The digital information is sent to software in the computer to be usd by some kind of software on the computer.
Step 7 - The image is diplayed.
Image processing is quite often used with scanners (XRays, documents, etc.) Then stored in a image filing cabinet on the computer.
 
• 3D Scanners - They use lasers and some of the technology above to scan a 3D object, like a human skull, into the computer. It takes all the points in a xyz zone and implements them on the computer in the same geographical locations. The object, like the skull will show up on the monitor looking exactly the same, cracks, dents, teeth would all show up in a immersive 3D world. Very expensive. I heard the museum of the Rockies has one, but they won't let me play with it.

II. Magnetic Stripes and Smart Cards - The demise of many marriages
A. Credit Cards

B. One-Card

C. Badge Readers - security entry

D. Smart Cards

III. Digital Cameras - allows you to take pictures and store the photographed images digitally instead of on traditional film.
A. Some download
B. Some actually have a floppy drive or PC card.
C. Judged by dpi (dots per inch) or resolution. (the addressable points on the screen).
D. Also uses analog to digital converter.
       E. Video input is actually considered something a little different.
IV. Speech Processing: Love to hear myself talk, and so does my computer.
A. Speech-recognition Systems
1. Limited vocabulary, but so do I.

2. The steps

a. Speak

b. Digitize

c. Match game

d. display what hopefully is close to the actual words.

3. Must haves: Software (downloadable), microphone, vocabulary database (small or big).

4. Can't be shy, must initialize the software by talking to your inanimate computer for 20 minutes, me, thats not a problem.

5. These are great for people who can't type.

6. Speaker dependent and now Speaker independent.
web site for learning more about voice recognition. click here

IV. Vision-input Systems: Computer eyes
1. laser tracing

2. Digital Cameras - example is my headshot on my homepage

What could happen with vision-input

a. Your car could drive for you

b. No more Dr. visits

V. Hand-Held Data Entry Devices
1. Contents
a. limited keyboard

b. display like a caculator

c. small storage, or memory space

d. A Scanning device

2. All entries are uploaded to a real computer later

3. Example are the inventory or ordering devices for grocery stores.
 

• The edges of a touch screen emit horizontal and vertical beams of light that crisscross the screen. When a finger touches the screen the computer can pinpoint where the beams were interupted.
• Kiosks - are computer based multimedia machines that allow human interaction usually through touch screens. Kiosks are found in many public places and they help find local establishments, or in stores such as Hastings or Wal Mart to help find items.

• Video input or capture is the process of entering full-motion recording into a computer and storing the video an a hard disk or some other medium.
• Video capture cards are needed for entering video to the computer
• A video capture card is an expansion card that converts the analog video signal into a digital signal that a computer can understand.
• Video files can take a huge amount of space on a hard drive, 3 minutes of high quality video can take a gigabyte of memory (50 million pages of text).
• So the files are compressed, a popular compression standard is MPEG. The Motion Pictures Expert Group.
• DVD's use MPEG standard to compress video data.