CMSC 150 - Fall 2017 - System.out.print("Output")

Output devices have been the focus of this blog series thus far, with one small exception. However, output devices have become fused with their input counterparts as time as gone on, to create I/O (Input/Output) devices that fuse those two ideas into one piece of hardware. They emerged as a niche idea; however, they have become much more useful as the 21st century has gone on. Let's take a look at a few of those types of devices. (5) Disk Drives A staple of the I/O world on the decline is the disk drive. Designed originally to read and write compact disks (or CDs), the disk drive has evolved to interact with all things round. The first CD drive was reportedly popularized by Hewlett Packard in 1995, and the device became widely popular for being inexpensive and ideally sized to house musical albums, among other things (1). However, as data, programs, and computers in general have become more complex, the limited storage space of CDs left it behind a field of more efficie

A mildly unrealistic view of what happens to you in VR. (6) Picture this: humans of the future, living in an ideal world without conflict or reason for fear, perhaps with superhuman abilities or infinite lives. This future may be possible far sooner than you might imagine, and it's all thanks to one technology: virtual reality. Virtual reality, or VR, is defined by Merriam-Webster as, " an artificial environment which is experienced through sensory stimuli (such as sights and sounds) provided by a computer and in which one's actions partially determine what happens in the environment" (1). The big plastic boxes attached to people's heads have not always been the case, however. Let's take a look at where VR came from. The Past Okay, so that may have been a lie. In fact, plastic boxes mounted to the face have pretty much been the standard for VR since the beginning. While the exact origin of VR is disputed, an early ancestor of the technology was the &

(7) There is an entirely different form of computer output that this blog has yet to touch: audio, as opposed to visual. The computer has had less of a prominent relationship with our ears as it has with our eyes, but it has still opened up a world of opportunity for the audio market. History The first speaker, which converts an audio signal to sound, was likely invented by Johann Philipp Reis in 1861 (1), but Altec Lansing claims responsibility for the modern computer speaker. Regardless of the history of it, speakers pushed their technology upon computers, unlike displays which evolved cables and ports as computers increased the amount of available output volume. Speakers generally require a power source, and information source (usually a headphone jack), and the speakers themselves: usually a vibrating metal diaphragm (3). Current: Headphones, Speakers, and More Computers can output sound in a vast array of ways today, usually through headphones or standalone speakers.