Input Devices

Input devices are defined as any piece of hardware that provides data to the computer. These include keyboards, pointing devices like a mouse or trackball, joysticks, and gamepads. Basically, anything that you can use to send information to a computer, is considered a computer input device. We'll take a look at the most common of them, and look at what's available.

At its most basic, a keyboard is an arrangment of keys (buttons). Typically the keys will have printed characters, and one keypress equals one character. Keyboards can also used to send commands to the computer using single keystrokes, or multiple keys all at once. CTRL+ALT+DEL is one example. A standard keyboard has 101 keys, but most have more, up to 130 in some cases. This article will take a brief look at keyboards and what to consider when buying one.

Learn More About Computer Keyboards...

A mouse is a computer pointing device that works by detecting 2 dimensional movement relative to the surface it is used on. Typical mice have 2 buttons, for left and right clicking, and a scroll wheel, used for moving a page up or down. The motion of the mouse translates to a pointer on your computer screen.

Mice have evolved over the years. The first mice used wheels on the bottom that would translate to left/right and up/down. Today's mice use a laser to detect movement. I'll go over a brief history of mice, and look at the different types of mice that are available today.

Learn More About Computer Mice

As computer gaming gained popularity, many gaming devices were created to enhance your gaming experience...

• Joysticks
• Gamepads
• Keyboard Gamepads

We'll take a look at the different devices available and what they are used for.

Learn More About Gaming Input Devices

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