From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Incomputing,input/output/(*.*)., orClear Text, refers to the communication between a digital processing system (such as acomputer or anembedded system), and the outside world – possibly a human, another processing system or a device.
Inputs are the signals or data received by the system, and outputs are the signals or data sent from it.
I/O devices are used by a person (or other system) to communicate with the digital processing system. For instance,keyboards andmice are considered input devices of a computer, whilemonitors andprinters are considered output devices of a computer. Devices for communication between computers, such asmodems andnetwork cards, typically serve for both input and output.
Note that the description of a device as either input or output depends on how it is viewed. Mouses and keyboards take as input physical movement that the human user outputs and convert it into signals that a computer can understand. The output from these devices is input for the computer. Similarly, printers and monitors take as input signals that a computer outputs. They then convert these signals into representations that human users can see or read. (For a human user the process of reading or seeing these representations is receiving input.)
Computers only work with digital information, any input that a computer receives must be digitalised.
