Lets discuss about the transition & development of Output Devices.

Timeline of Output Devices:

A pictorial view,

Timeline of Output Devices

The Monitor

The way in which the evolution of output medium has had an appulse on the design and the creation of the graphic images is by having vector images that look real life so it is luminous and entrancing for people to look at. The reason for this is that before in former times old fashioned monitor cases which were not as thin, because it is around 30cm deep and are Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors. Whereas now there are modern day monitors that are delicate which means that the case isn’t more than a few centimeters wide and are typically LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) or LED (Light Emeeting Diode) monitor.

A computer monitor is sometimes called a visual display unit. Also the monitor consist of  display device that lets you see programs, pictures and documents.The monitors come in altered sizes, but do the exact same thing. Therefore it is the most general or customary output device and there are various types of monitors for example modern and older monitors. Another way in which the monitors have had an impact on the design and the formation of the graphics is, because before people used to usually watch films and programs on the TV whereas now they could watch the same films and programs on the computer. For as much as  this shows us that the computers are offering high quality graphics and features in order for the characteristic needs of the customers to be met.

Printer

A printer is an External device that acquittance with another digital device to print what a user sees on the screen. Also printers use small pixels to transfer an image from the system to another exterior. The way in which the progression of printers has had an impact on the design and the creation of the graphics is, because if people wanted to receive good quality printing then they would have to buy a printer that is more expensive. Because now people don’t have to buy an expensive printer to receive good quality graphics. This is because the Inkjet printers have small nozzles that squirts tiny drops of ink onto the paper. The reason why IT professionals would use this is, because it is cheap to buy and easy to run, however it can be slow for the complex printing. In addition there are a wide range of printers that people can buy now and these are Inkjet Printers, Color Laser Printers, Dye Sublimation Printers and Solid Ink Printers.

Another way in which the advancement of the printers has had an impact on the design and the generation of the graphics is, because there are new specialties  achievable on one machine so the particular needs of the customers are being met as they are able to do everything themselves. Which means that there is a scanner, a photocopier and a fax machine. Considering due to the fact that before people used to only print from their printer and if they wanted to scan, photocopy or fax something they would either have to go to the post office or the library.

Now lets talk a little about some special kind of I/O devices.

BI-DIRECTIONAL DEVICES INPUT AND OUTPUT:

They are used to inter information into the computer and also to send them out. It permits to transfer information in a bi-directional manner.

 

Modem(modulator/demodulator)

It is a device used to transfer information between many computers through telephone lines. The modem converts analogically binary information provided by the computer. It sends this new code into the phone line. This is why we say it is an analogical and numeric convertor. It is characterized by its speed expressed in seconds.

Modem

How a Modem works

Rewritable CD or DVD ROM

They permit to record data into the computer and also to read recorded information through the screen.

RW DVD Drive

 Flash disk (Universal Serial Bus)

Universal Serial Bus permits to enter texts, images and sounds into the computer and also permit taking of information from the computer through internet to be seen.

Flash Drives

Output Device:

Lets stimuli how a Human Body reacts with output.

What stimuli can we output (generate) – how can we communicate outwardly?
• Physical Pressure & Movement
– Hands, Feet, Trunk, Head, Lips, Eyes.
• Sound
– Noise, Clapping, Sound, Speech and Music/Singing, …
• Position and Change in Position
– Hands, Feet, Trunk, Head, Lips, Eyes.
• Breath Pressure & Length of Time
• Heat (Body Heat)
• Conscious output is muscular mediated communications
– Unless you use MRI or something more exotic.

We can categorize Output Devices into 4 types.

• Text Based.
• Graphics based.
• Audio Based.
• Video Based.

Example,

A display device is an output device that visually conveys texts, graphics and video information. A printer is an output device that prints text and graphics on a physical medium such as paper or transparency film.An audio output device produces music, speech, or other sounds.

The monitor

A monitor is an example of an output device that can be used to display text. It can also display graphics and video.It is an output device which permits the computer to paste data already processed to enable the user visualize and to understand its content. It is composed of a graphic card with characteristics permitting the regulation of images. Its dimension is expressed in inches, (an inch equal 2, 54 cm). There are screens of 15, 17, 19 and 21 inches which correspond to the diagonal of the screen. There are mainly two types of monitors which are traditional or ordinary monitors cathode Ray Tube (CRT) and the flat panel display (LCD) Liquid Crystal Display.

Samsung 17 CRT Monitor

Dell 23-inch Touch Monitor

Printers

It is an output device which permits the sending out of treated texts and images by the computer on a paper that is sending out treated information in the form of hard copies. There are two types of printers: impact printers (line printers and character printers) and non impact printers (inkjet printers, laser printers and thermal printers).

Printer

Speakers & Headphones

A pair of speakers is an audio output device that generates sound. The headphone is a pair of small speakers placed over the ears and plugged into a port on the sound card. A woofer or sub woofer is used to boost the low bass sound and is connected to the port on the sound card.

Speakers

Headphone

Graphic plotters

It is a device that produces output on paper that is hard copies, like printers do. Instead of producing images and text using print, head print, ribbons or lasers they use paint. Plotters produce very high quality diagrams at a very high speed and therefore perfect for engineering application.

Graphic Plotter

 Projector

A Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) projector uses its own light source to project what is displayed on the computer on a wall or projection screen. A digital light processing (DLP) projector uses tiny mirrors to reflect light which can be seen clearly in a well-lit room.

Projector

Working procedure of a Projector

 

Going mobile: Scribbling on the go

Reaching out to your computer: From tablet to touch

Surprisingly, the graphics tablet and stylus-based input actually pre-dates the mouse. Used starting in the 1950s and ’60s for the input of graphical data into computer systems, even Apple sold one called the BitPad as an accessory to the Apple II, in the 1980s. But the need for a separate area on the desktop for using the tablet, and the high-cost of quality tablets has kept them largely side-lined for desktop use.

One of the most innovative touch devices was the Eo Personal Communicator, released in 1993. It featured a full touch screen in a notebook size package, for use with a stylus, and ran PenPoint, an OS designed specifically for pen-based input. A precursor to later PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) it was the darling of Silicon Valley for its one brief year in the marketplace, before being shut down by acquirer AT&T in 1994. Almost 20 years later, the very similar-looking Amazon Kindle  is only now about to add touch capability to its screen.

Amazon Kindle

As processors became smaller and faster the natural desire to turn them into ever more portable productivity devices created the PDA. Since PDAs are too small for a keyboard, they rely on new methods for input. One of the most innovative was Graffiti, used by Palm — then a division of US Robotics – in its Pilot products, which launched in 1997. The Palm used a small touch sensitive area to detect stylized characters drawn with an included stylus with the addition of new batteries, a simplistic version of Space Invaders that Palm provided for new users to learn Graffiti by drawing the stylized version of falling characters before they reach the bottom of the screen.

USR Palm Pilot 5000

Texting keypads: One step forward, two steps back

PDAs were expensive and a little clunky for many years, leaving room for feature phones and texting to become the most popular methods of input for millions of phone users around the world. Many different systems were invented to allow for the entry of text on a phone keypad. The simplest was to press a key once for the first letter corresponding to the key, twice for the second letter, and so on. More sophisticated versions were introduced, such as T9, which began to predict and pre-select the word being typed, especially once the phones had screens large enough to display options.

BlackBerry helped innovate with a tiny but almost fully featured keyboard, often called a “thumb keyboard,” which allows users to carefully type with one or both thumbs. This was a huge productivity improvement for many frequent texters and is still very popular in its original form or as a “slider” that hides under the main phone.

T9 Keypad

Putting it all together: The capacitive touchscreen & gesture-based interface

As it did with the mouse-driven UI, Apple put all the elements of a touch-driven UI together in the iPhone and then the iPad. Most previous devices, including Windows Mobile, relied on a stylus and a single point of contact with a resistive touch screen. Apple’s approach was to use a multi-touch capacitive screen, which is very sensitive to finger touches and can detect several at once to allow for “pinch” and “zoom” gestures. Text input relies on a virtual keyboard which mimics a physical keyboard, or a small keyboard connected over Bluetooth. This approach has quickly become the standard for mobile devices — essentially killing stylus based mobile devicealmost overnight — and has set off a patent war between device vendors as Apple, Android device makers, and Windows Mobile based vendors all fight over the same territory.

NASA iPad Application

The mainframe years: Punch card data input with table sized key punches

Now, lets take a tour to see through the transition of Input devices from past to present.

Timeline of Input Devices:

A pictorial view,

Timeline of Input Devices

As we glide our fingers over the screens of our smartphones and tablets, or chatter to our computer  instead of typing at it, it is easy to forget how far input devices have evolved since the first automated computing devices were introduced just over a century ago. After all, from the invention of the printing press in 1440 until the innovation of the paperback, and more recently the e-book, reading changed very little.

While there were earlier ways of entering data into computers, such as using switches and dials, the keypunch and punch cards were the first widely adopted technologies that allowed the permanent storage and retrieval of programs and data. Most cards featured 80 columns, because the 1890 Census had 80 questions, and Herman Hollerith had created the modern punch card to tabulate the results – a legacy that lived on, both in decades of 80 column computer screens and in the company he created, which became part of IBM.

Multiple punches in each column could be used to represent either a letter or number, which was typically also printed in ink at the top of the column so the cards could also be read by eye. For programming, each card usually contained one statement, so that re-organizing code could often be done by re-ordering the cards. The table-sized IBM Model 026 keypunch (above) is on display at the Computer History Museum and was one of the later models in common use.

Table Sized Key Punches of Mainframe Computer

Personal computing revolution: The “QWERTY”-based electronic keyboard

These keyboards look clunky by today’s ergonomic standards, but they represented a large leap forward from punch cards, as they made editing a matter of re-keying input, instead of ripping up and retyping entire cards. The famous “QWERTY” keyboard layout was inherited from typewriter design even though it has never been clear if it is the best arrangement of the keys. Alternate layouts like the Dvorak Keyboard, which claim superior typing speeds, never caught on.

The early history of the keyboard as a pre-mouse input mechanism affected its development for many years. It wasn’t until fairly recently, for example, that the Scroll Lock key disappeared from PC keyboards, even though the need for a dedicated scroll mode went away with the advent of the mouse and scrollbar.  The System Request Key (aka Sys Req) is even older, dating back to the need for mainframe terminals to issue interrupts. At least it has been given the additional purpose of printin the screen image (Prt Scrn), although even that function is often vestigial and typically been superseded by window clipping utilities for most uses.

Addition Of Key Board

Making personal computers usable: Enter the mouse

It is hard to believe that the mouse was actually invented almost 50 years ago, by Douglas Engelbart and Bill English or SRI. It wasn’t until years later that a mouse was used in connection with a multi-windowed desktop, most famously at Xerox Parc connected to the Xerox Alto.  It was a 1979 tour of PARC, and demonstration of Smalltalk-80 on the Xerox Alto, that helped give Steve Jobs and Apple Computer the idea to use a mouse-driven interface, first for the $10,000 Lisa computer in 1983 and then for the much less expensive, and of course much more successful, Macintosh introduced in 1984.

To make mice affordable for the consumer, relatively low-quality rubber ball-based versions were commonly used, instead of the more expensive early optical versions that required dedicated mouse pads with embedded lines. As time went on other kinds of optical mice, which could operate on ordinary surfaces, became affordable and are by far the most widely used today.

Engelbart, Xerox, Sun Microsystems, and eventually Microsoft Windows all adopted either 2-button or 3-button mice as standard, but Apple has consistently stuck with a simple design with a single button. Innovation on mice certainly hasn’t stopped at buttons, with the addition of scroll wheels, extra buttons, and even gyroscopic versions that can be run with hand waves pushing the designs forward.

Alto Mouse

Joysticks

Are also another kind of pointing device of a personal computer.  They are generally used for playing games and not for controlling the on screen cursor in productivity software.

• Good:
– X,Y positioning.
– Fast, hand-eye coordinated movements.
– Small spaces.
– Absolute Position vs. Relative Modes.
• Bad:
– Text Input.
– Fine Positioning.

Joystick

Light Pen

This is an input device which is used to draw lines or figures on a computer screen. It’s touched to the CRT screen where it can detect raster on the screen as it passes.

• Good:
– Direct feedback between position and the screen – direct manipulation.
– Fine motor oriented operations – drawing, signature.
– Handwriting.
– Selection of items – check, radio, list, …

• Bad:
– Pen can obscure the visual area.
– Can fatigue the users arm.
– Handwriting as data entry can be much slower than typing.

Light Pen

Writing With Light Pen

Voice Input Device

This devices converts spoken words to M/C language form. A micro phone is used to convert human speech into electric signals. The signal pattern is then transmitted to a computer when it’s compared to a dictionary of patterns that have been previously placed in a storage unit of computer. When a close match is found, the word is recognized.

• Good:
– Supports users with limited mobility.
– Supports a natural way that people communicate.
– Compatible with telephone infrastructure.
– Simple choices (Yes/No, A/B/C, Up/Down).
– No ability to use a keyboard.
– Illiterate users.
• Bad:
– Low rates of accuracy (90-99%).
– Requires training.
– Slow method of communicating (versus keyboard).
– Complex interactions are difficult.

Scanner

A scanner is an input device that is used to scan images and text them into the computer.  It also permits the typing of data captage and filming images by digitizing it producing an image made of tiny pixels of different brightness and colors, representing them numerically and sent to the computer. There are two types of scanners flat bed and hand held scanner.

Scanner

Optical Character Rader

It’s a device which detects alpha numeric characters printed or written on a paper. The text which is to be scanned is illuminated by a low frequency light source. The light is absorbed by the dark areas but reflected from the bright areas. The reflected light is received by the photocells.

Working Procedure Of OCR

Bar Code Reader

This device reads bar codes and coverts them into electric pulses to be processed by a computer. A bar code is nothing but data coded in form of light and dark bars.

• Coding methods:
– Code 11.
– Code 39.
– Code 93.
– Code 128.
– Codabar.
– Interleaved 2 of 5.
– EAN 13.
– EAN 8.
– PDF417.
– Telepen.
– UPC A.
– UPC E.
– 2 and 5 digit supplementalsm associated with EAN and UPC barcodes.
– Patch Codes: types 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and T.

• Linear (1 D) and 2D symbologies.

Bar Code Reader

Some more Input Devices,

• WebCam / Video Camera
• Phone Keypad
• Accelerometers / movement detectors – mouse that can be used in space.
• Microphone
• Scanner – 2D and 3D
• Special scientific sensors
– Physical – Light, Heat, Pressure, Temperature, Weight, Mass.
– Electrical – Voltage, Resistance, Capacitance.
– Geographic Location / Position – GPS – Global Positioning System
– Gamma Radiation.

The Transition To The Next Generation:

Now, lets categorize the I/O devices we’re going to discuss & see through there transition from the past to present.

Input Device: 

At first lets see how a Human Body reacts regarding any inputs.

What stimulus dimensions can we humans detect? (input to a human)

Consciously Controlled – State and Changes of State
• Types of receptors
– Chemoreceptors
• used for smell and taste.
• sensitive to chemical substances.
• also monitor blood pH.
– Mechanoreceptors
• stimulated by mechanical forces.
• Baroreceptors in the aortic wall sense changes in blood pressure.
– Proprioceptors
• sense the degree of muscle contraction.
• Tendon stretch.
• Movement of ligaments.
– Thermoreceptors
• sense temperature changes.
• located in the skin and the hypothalamus.
– Pain receptors (nociceptors)
• naked dendrites (nerve endings) that respond to chemicals released by
damaged tissues.
– Photoreceptors
• sensitive to light.

• Visual (Sight)
– Light Intensity (Visible Light).
– Color (Visible Light).
– Change over time (up to 60-100 changes per second in visual field).
– 2D images.
– 3D images.
– 2D patterns and shapes (characters).
– Movement.
– “on a clear, moonless night, the unaided human eye can detect the light from a single match up to 10 miles (16 kilometres) away. ”
• Heat
– Radiant Electromagnetic Radiation (infrared light) on the skin.
• Tactile (Touch – Skin, Tongue, Mucous Membranes, …)
– Pressure.
– Movement Across Skin.
– Temperature Differences.
– Heat & Cold.
– Vibration.
– Pain.
– Electric Shock.

• Hearing (Ears and Cochlear Organs)
– Approximately frequencies 20-20,000 hz.
– Simultaneous frequencies.
– Time varying frequencies.
– Position in a 3D sound field via time differences and acoustic effects like echo and reverb.
– Timbre – the qualities of the sound – trumpet vs. violin vs. xylophone.
– Sounds, Speech, Music & Noise.
• Proprioception
– Unconsciously monitor the position of our body.
– Depends on receptors in the muscles, tendons, and joints.
– Acceleration Detection.
• Taste (Tongue and Nasal Passages)
– Sweet, Sourc, Bitter, Salty and Umami.
– Electric Shock.
• Smell
– Humans can recognize over 10,000 scents.

Now, lets talk about some common input devices.

Keyboard

It is considered as the principal input device and permits to enter text information in the form of the figures or symbols. The keyboard can also be used to type the commands directing the computer to perform certain actions. There are three types of the keyboard, the German, the English and the French that is Qwertzy, Qwerty, Azerty respectively. It contains 120 buttons and it is divided into five parts: numeral part, alphabetic, functional, key control and displacement keys.

• Good:
– Text Data Entry.
– Fast typists.
– Accelerator Keys and Mnemonics.
• Bad:
– Drawing.
– Selecting from many choices.
– Limiting choices entered as text (vs. say a set of checkboxes).

A Modern KeyBoard

Mouse

The mouse is a pointing device which permits to select command and displace the cursor. It is moved on the surface of a desk or on a mouse pad. It is composed of two parts the right which is used to for clicking the program you want to effectuate and the left part which is to click, double click, and select a portion of text to be treated. In most mouses, we find a button between the two parts which enable the text to go up and down. There are five big families of mouses: mechanical mouse, opto-mechanical mouse, optical mouse, wheel mouse and wireless mouse.

• Good:
– “Gesturing” – pointing, clicking, double clicking, drag and drop.
– Selecting a region or item.
– Arranging icons visually.
– Fastest device to orient on a target on screen according to research.
– Uses gross muscle movements of arm and wrist.
• Bad:
– Drawing (fine motor skills).
– Data entry of text.
– Purely Horizontal or vertical movements (like cascading menus!).
– How many button is best? (1,2,3,4, …).
– Source of repetitive strain injuries.

Modern Day Mouse

Track Ball

Track ball is similar to the upside- down design of the mouse. The user moves the ball directly, while the device itself remains stationary. The user spins the ball in various directions to effect the screen movements.

• Good:
– Orienting.
– Avoiding inadvertent movement while button pressing.
– Small desktop space needed.
• Bad:
– Of mouse, joystick and trackball – Worst for targeting.
– Drawing (fine motor).
– Click and select motions (vs. a mouse).

Expert Mouse Track Ball

J.C.R. Licklider (1960)
Outlined “man-computer symbiosis”
“The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing
machines will be coupled together very tightly and that the resulting
partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data
in a way not approached by the information-handling machines we know
today.”

Produced goals that are pre-requisite to “man-computer symbiosis”
immediate goals:
• time sharing of computers among many users
• electronic i/o for the display and communication of symbolic and pictorial
information
• interactive real time system for information processing and programming
• large scale information storage and retrieval
intermediate goals:
• facilitation of human cooperation in the design & programming of large
systems
• combined speech recognition, hand-printed character recognition & lightpen
editing
long term visions:
• natural language understanding (syntax, semantics, pragmatics)
• speech recognition of arbitrary computer users
• heuristic programming

Ivan Sutherland’s SketchPad (1963 PhD Thesis)
Sophisticated drawing package
• introduced many new ideas/concepts now found in today’s interfaces
– hierarchical structures defined pictures and sub-pictures
– object-oriented programming: master picture with instances
– constraints: specify details which the system maintains through changes
– icons: small pictures that represented more complex items
– copying: both pictures and constraints
– input techniques: efficient use of light pen
– world coordinates: separation of screen from drawing coordinates
– recursive operations: applied to children of hierarchical objects
Parallel developments in hardware:
• “low-cost” graphics terminals
• input devices such as data tablets (1964)
• display processors capable of real-time manipulation of images (1968)

In 1963, I. E. Sutherland (1938-), introduced the light pen which he had developed while working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.When the pen makes contact with the screen, light-sensitive cells in the pen tip transmit an electronic signal, allowing users to write or modify on-screen images. Touch-sensitive monitors work in a similar manner except the user simply touches the appropriate place on the monitor rather than using a light pen. Digitizing tablets, invented by the Rand Corporation in 1964, allow a graphic image to be scanned, converted into digital data and displayed or revised on screen. These systems are widely used in graphics, engineering, and design work. Specialized Point-of-Sale (POS) terminals began appearing in retail outlets in 1973. POS terminals perform typical cash register functions, but also track inventory, transmit data, and check credit inquiries. Often paired with optical scanners or wand readers, POS terminals have helped decrease operating costs for many retailers.

A mouse or “pet” peripheral, is a fairly new input device, first included with the Apple Computer Corporation ‘s LISA microcomputer in 1983. So named because its shape somewhat resembles a small rodent, it contains a rolling ball and a panel with one or more buttons. When rolled on a smooth, flat surface, several small, light-sensing diodes track the mouse’s movements and the computer responds by moving the cursor on-screen accordingly. Mice are a particular necessity when using graphics, painting and design programs. Printers are the most common peripherals used purely for output, although technically, video displays and modems may also be considered output devices as well. One of the earliest printers was a line printer, developed in 1953 by the Remington Rand Company. Line printers produce entire lines of characters at a time using an engraved band or chain to strike the ribbon. Printers which produce characters by striking against a ribbon are called impact printers. Another impact printer is the daisy wheel printer, so named for its print mechanism, a spoked wheel containing raised characters. Daisy wheels produce excellent print quality, but print slowly. Dot matrix printers produce letters in the same fashion as bank temperature signs, whereby light patterns are turned on or off to produce numbers. In the same way, different pin patterns strike the ribbon to produce dot-formed characters.

Ink jet printers, a non-impact printer introduced by IBM in 1976, improved upon dot matrix appearance by squirting dots of ink to form letters. In 1982, IBM also introduced the laser printer, an extremely fast printer which utilizes laser beams moving across a rotating drum to create near typeset quality print. Pen plotters, available since the mid 1950s, convert graphs, charts and line drawings into large, high resolution color output. One or several pens move across the paper to produce a 3-D effect image. On the downside, plotters are often bulky (some as large as pool tables), expensive and not useful for text output. With Computer Output Microfilm (COM), developed in 1968, printed output is photographed as very small images on sheets or rolls of film. COM output produces amazing space savings; a 450 page book can be stored on three 4 x 6 inch (10 x 15 cm) microfiche pages.

I/O Devices: About its past, present & possible future

A computer is an electronic machine that accepts data, processes it at very high speed according to specific instructions called program (Bruce Presley, Lawrenceville Press).Input and output devices are material components of the computer which assures the exchange of information and communication between the computer and the external world (environment). These input and output play a capital role in the functioning of a computer. Once more the problem we are faced with is to know the particularity, singularity of these components which permit us to communicate with the computer.

The concept of input and output devices is much simpler than it sounds. These devices,most commonly associated with computers—are the basic peripheral hardware you use on a daily basis. Input hardware serves to send data into the computer’s CPU, while output devices send data outwards to the user.

The time when computers were originated into after The Second World War, they reformed the way modern communities concern. Fundamentally, they have approved for the more effective processing and storing of extensive amounts of data. The component set up by a computer, however, must still be enlist into its data banks in some way, and must be output to be used. The advancement of adaptable, convenient & uncomplicated devices to access and condense information has been crucial to the computer’s progress because these are the parts of a computer system with which most people commonly interact. Many procedure of input have been improved, each implying certain aid as well as deficiency.

A Flashback From The Past:

Punched cards were the first output devices used by modern computer designers. They were developed by Joseph-Marie Jacquard, a French weaver, who designed them in 1801 as a means of automating his weaving machines. In 1888 Herman Hollerith, an American businessman, designed a machine that used punched cards in conjunction with electrically charged nails that connected wherever the card had a hole. This machine was used to help process information from the census of 1890. The use of computers expanded rapidly after the end of Second World War, and by the 1950s, many businesses were aggregate them into their foremost activities. This gave acceleration  to the advancement of special input devices for various needs. The modem was one of the first input devices to help create world-wide linking capabilities among computer systems. The word MODEM is an acronym for MODulator/DEModulator which defines the process of changing digital (computer) signals to analog (telephone) signals and vice versa. Modems came into use in the 1950s and allowed computers to connect to each other through telephone lines. Magnetic tape, developed and used during the late 1950s, is now used more as a storage element than an input method. Magnetic ink and magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) were also introduced in the 1950s. The banking industry is the primary user of magnetic ink. Checks and deposit slips are printed with the ink so that they can be scanned through MICR readers which convert the characters into electronic signals. The terminal was first brought out as an input device in the mid 1960s. Known by several names (VDTs–video display terminals, CRTs– cathode-ray tubes), a terminal generally consists of a keyboard and display screen, though keyboard/printer sequence are available. Keyboards generate letters by using codes and electronic signals to simulate characters.

Concurrently, In the world of computing many revolutionary proposals was coming from HCI experts of that time. They were thinking about future possible machines & devices which would be more efficient, more user friendly & more easier to communicate  with. Some of them were,

Douglas Engelbart
The Vision (Early 50’s)
…I had the image of sitting at a big CRT screen with all kinds
of symbols, new and different symbols, not restricted to our
old ones. The computer could be manipulated, and you could
be operating all kinds of things to drive the computer
… I also had a clear picture that one’s colleagues could be
sitting in other rooms with similar work stations, tied to the
same computer complex, and could be sharing and working
and collaborating very closely. And also the assumption that
there’d be a lot of new skills, new ways of thinking that would
evolve ”

A Conceptual Framework for Augmenting Human Intellect
(SRI Report, 1962)
“By augmenting man’s intellect we mean increasing the
capability of a man to approach a complex problem
situation, gain comprehension to suit his particular needs,
and to derive solutions to problems.
One objective is to develop new techniques, procedures, and
systems that will better adapt people’s basic informationhandling
capabilities to the needs, problems, and progress of
society.”

First Ever Mouse

Conclusion:

Throughout the history of computers, one aspect has plagued and restricted its growth more than any other: permanent storage. From the very first computers that used punched cards and tape for input and storage to the refrigerator-sized hard drive, the tale of non-volatile memory lays the foundations for today’s ubiquitously digital world. At the same time, however, computer storage is strangely disassociated from the breakneck advances in silicon transistor fabrication, and so it offers an interesting counterpoint to the Megahertz War, Moore’s Law, and today’s surge towards low-power system-on-chip computing.

This diametric split stems from the fact that computer storage must be permanent, while almost every silicon-based, lithographic process is focused on making circuits that are incredibly fast and volatile. This gap has obviously lessened in recent years with the wholescale adoption of transistor-based NAND flash memory used by every digital gadget under the sun, but the gulf is still clearly visible when you look at hard drives, optical discs (CD, DVD, Blu-ray), and tapes.

Video Tour!

Hey!I have made a video presentation on this topic. It’s like a video tour or guideline about how I formed the posts in this topic. Hope you’re going to enjoy the video.

Here’s the link: https://vimeo.com/65210730

References:

http://www.harvardir.org/a-brief-history-of-computers-and-memory/
http://people.bu.edu/baws/brief%20computer%20history.html
http://www.ehow.com/about_5250707_history-computer-memory.html
http://www.eetimes.com/design/memory-design/4402296/Slideshow–A-brief-history-of-memory
http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/04/08/the-history-of-computer-data-storage-in-pictures/
http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/02/18/amazing-facts-and-figures-about-the-evolution-of-hard-disk-drives/
http://inventors.about.com/od/rstartinventions/a/Ram.htm
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/130610/computer-memory/252736/Semiconductor-memory
http://www.cs.sun.ac.za/museum/gen4.html
http://www.pctechguide.com/computer-memory
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/racetrack/
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/06-02-11data_frontier.asp
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120822131214.htm

Memristor:

The year 2008 marked the first development of the Memristor – a completely new kind of circuit element (that was predicted in1971). Memristor circuit elements can retain a state (i.e., memory) even when power is off. They could replace flash EPROM in the nearterm (i.e., “thumb drives”), and eventually DRAM. Imagine a 1000 Gbyte main memory with no need for a disk drive! Memristors can remember multiple states (not just ones and zeros). Thus a memristor memory might eventually “remember” like a human neuron. This could lead to neural-type processors in the long term. Time frame for new memristor devices:
– Flash memory replacements – circa 2012 ( Which has already came)
– Replacements for DRAM – 2015 or later
– Disk unit replacements – 2015 or later
– “Neural” (multi-state) memories – 2025-2030
– “Realistic” estimated slip for these dates – five to ten years for near-term digital memory replacements. Ten to twenty (or more) years for true neural
memories.

Phase Change Memory (“PCM”):

Phase Change Memory (“PCM”) is another new memory type. PCM is similar to flash memory, in that writing a one or zero bit is done in two ways:
– Writing a 0 is done by heating up the PCM material and creating a
crystalline structure, which has a low conductivity.
– Writing a 1 is done with a higher temperature makes the structure an “amorphous: crystal – one that has a disorganized structure. This
structure has much higher conductivity.

Experimentation is still being done. Read/write cycles are only up to about 100 million (far too low to produce a product; DRAM and flash memory can do 1-10 quadrillion cycles!).

PCM

Moneta:

A University of California, San Diego faculty-student team is about to demonstrate a first-of-its kind, phase-change memory solid state storage device that provides performance thousands of times faster than a conventional hard drive and up to seven times faster than current state-of-the-art solid-state drives (SSDs). The device was developed in the Computer Science and Engineering department at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and will be on exhibit June 7-8 at DAC 2011, the world’s leading technical conference and trade show on electronic design automation, with the support of several industry partners, including Micron Technology, BEEcube and Xilinx. The storage system, called “Moneta,” uses phase-change memory (PCM), an emerging data storage technology that stores data in the crystal structure of a metal alloy called a chalcogenide. PCM is faster and simpler to use than flash memory – the technology that currently dominates the SSD market.

Moneta SSD

Moneta marks the latest advancement in solid state drives (SSDs). Unlike conventional hard disk drives, solid state storage drives have no moving parts. Today’s SSDs use flash memory and can be found in a wide range of consumer electronics such as iPads and laptops. Although faster than hard disk, flash memory is still too slow to meet modern data storage and analysis demands, particularly in the area of high performance computing where the ability to sift through enormous volumes of data quickly is critical. Examples include storing and analyzing scientific data collected through environmental sensors, or even web searches through Google