Entry Number 5 - Output Devices with Input, Too! I/O and the Fusion of Information

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.

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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 efficient storage types. DVDs and, later, Blu-Ray disks have also used a similar technology. The crowning difference of CDs to other output devices is that some types can be edited, often by the user. The same device being "read" and "written" at a mass-market level is what sets the disk drive and its ancestors apart. The SD card and (notably) USB drive have succeeded the disk drive in storage capacity and practicality in many markets as time has gone on.

Digital Camera

The digital camera is an interesting example of an I/O device. The general concept of the camera has always been a (sometimes rudimentary) input device: recording a visual image. However, digital cameras take this a step further by being able to take that image and send it to a computer of some sort, thus guaranteeing an output capability. Many actually output to an SD card, which in turn outputs that information to a computer, making it an I/O device in its own right. The digital camera was invented by engineers at Kodak in 1975, and was used professionally a few years later. However, they entered the consumer sphere in the 1990s, and had replaced most film cameras a decade later (2). Today, digital cameras are found in most pockets in the developed world on smartphones.

Touchscreens

Speaking of smartphones, it is impossible to talk about I/O in 2017 without mentioning the most used technology of that type of today: the touchscreen. Likely the most intuitive computer output technology to date, the touchscreen allows users to use physical touch to interact with a computer. This is the input; in return, the screen with which they interact with returns visual output like any other screen. Touchscreens were first physically created at CERN in the 1970s, but all sorts of advancements have been made since then in precision, usability, and availability (3). Primitive touchscreen technology relied on force to register touch (these are called resistive touchscreens); now, screens usually recognize electric connections created when a body touches the screen, which has drastically improved their precision and usability (these are called capacitive touchscreens) (4). In addition, the creation of Apple's iPhone and the smartphone boom that followed popularized touchscreens to a new level; billions of smartphones have been produced since, and nearly all of them have a touchscreen (3). This I/O device has changed the computer world forever in a way that few physical technologies ever have or will, and will continue to shape our everyday lives as well.

Connection to CompSci

Input and output are the core functions of most computers, at least in some capacity. Devices that fuse those two technologies, like those mentioned above, lead to more intuitive human interactions with computers, and utilized both important interactions a computer can do.

(1) https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/c/cdr.htm

(2) https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/d/digicame.htm

(3) https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/t/toucscre.htm

(4) http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/touch-screen

(5) https://gcallah.github.io/OperatingSystems/graphics/IOHw_Intro.png