12. Specialised Input Output Devices

There are a number of devices that have been developed to meet the needs of certain groups or purpose. These include:-

1. Disabled users.
2. Designers.
3. Trainers and presenters of multimedia.

 

1. Devices for Disabled Users

There are a number of devices that have been adapted for disabled users to make it easier for them to use computers.

Devices like LARGE print or Braille keyboards help visually impaired users enter data into computers.

Keyboards can also come in different colour's for users who are colour blind.

Large touch screens have been created to help users who find it difficult to use keyboards. Some of these screens have sounds associated with symbols which 'talk' when pressed. People who have difficulty speaking can use these in conversation.

 

There are also specialised output devices for disabled users.

 

Large screens are an obvious example for short sighted users, but there are also braille printers for the blind.

Similarly there are voice synthesizers programs which can produce speech for users with no voice.

 

 

 

2. Designers and Virtual Reality

Designers are increasingly using computers to create a virtual reality in order to see how their designs or products might work in the real world. Virtual reality is a method of reproducing the outside world digitally in computers. Designers then interact with digital world in variety of ways to see how their designs work and make modifications to them, before going to the expense of building the final design.

Virtual reality Helmets or Headsets come with earphones and goggles containing a screen. Sensors within the goggles track the movement of the users eyes and adjust the picture on the screen

Data gloves are often used with virtual reality helmets. The Data glove contains sensors that track the movement of the hands and fingers and these are reproduced on the screen in the goggles. So the wearer can see what is hand is doing picking up and moving things around in the virtual world.

As described above virtual reality operate both as an input device and an output device. Movement of the eyes or the hand in response to what's happening on the goggle screen, is fed back through to movement and change of picture on the screen. Increasingly, virtual reality equipment is being used for entertainment, allowing users to live in a virtual world.

 

3. Trainers and presenters of multimedia

Multimedia is the combination of sound, still and moving pictures, together with text information in presentation packages.

To help present this information data projectors connected to a computer are used as an output device to project these presentations onto much larger screens.

Many times data projectors are used with interactive whiteboards.

The interactive whiteboard is linked to a computer and special electronic pens allow the user to write on the board or select commands from menus.

Signals from the board are fed back to the computer and reflected in the change of image thrown by the data projector on the screen.

In this way interactive whiteboard operates as an input device replacing the keyboard and the data projector as an output device, operating as the screen.

 

 

 

What you have to do!

In your Word document or your Brain answer the following questions.

1. Explain how disabled users might find voice synthesisers useful?

2. What is the main advantage to designers of virtual reality?

3. Describe an alternative input system to using keyboards for entering and outputting data.

 

What you should be able to do!

1. Name three groups who require specialised devices.

2. Provide alternatives to using keyboards and mice to entering data and monitors for displaying output.

3. Explain the advantages of using virtual reality headsets and data gloves.

 

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