Peripheral - Definition and Overview

For an account of the words periphery and peripheral as they are used in biology, sociology, politics, computer hardware, and other fields, see the periphery disambiguation page.

A peripheral is a type of computer hardware that is added to a host computer, in order to expand its abilities. More specifically the term is used to describe those devices that are optional in nature, as opposed to hardware that is either demanded, or always required in principle.

The term also tends to be applied to devices that are hooked up externally, typically though some form of computer bus like USB. Typical examples include joysticks, printers and scanners. Devices such as monitors and disk drives are not considered peripherals because they are not truly optional, and video capture cards are typically not referred to as peripheral because they are internal devices.

List of common peripherals

• Storage
  • Removable (Writes/reads portable media)
    • CD
      • CD-ROM
      • CD-RW
      • CD-R
    • DVD
      • DVD-ROM
      • DVD-RW
      • DVD-R
    • Tape drive
    • Floppy disk
    • Punch card
  • Internal
    • Hard disk
    • RAM
    • Disk array controller
• Input
  • Manual
    • Keyboard
    • Pointing devices
      • Mouse
      • Trackball
    • Joystick
    • Touch screen
    • Joypad
  • Image scanner
  • Computer terminal
  • Computer speech recognition
  • Webcam
  • Digitizing tablet
  • Barcode reader
• Output
  • Printing
    • Plotter
    • Printer
    • Braille embosser
  • Sound
    • Computer speech synthesis
    • Sound card
    • Speakers
  • Visual
    • Graphics card
    • Monitor
  • Refreshable Braille display
• Networking
  • Modem
  • Network card

See Also

• Peripheral device
• Computer hardware

External link

• Peripherals category in dmoz (http://dmoz.org/Computers/Hardware/Peripherals/)