Computer Science Courses/Computer Science 305: Operating SystemsCourse
InstructorDavid WhitsettShow bio
David has taught computer applications, computer fundamentals, computer networking, and marketing at the college level. He has a MBA in marketing.
In computer science, the word peripheral is used to describe something that is not central to the workings of the computer itself. A printer is a peripheral, the processor is not. In this lesson, we'll examine how to classify peripherals.
Table of Contents
- How Does This Thing Plug In?
- Classifying Peripherals
- Peripherals and the Operating System
- Two More Takes on Virtual Devices
- Lesson Summary
In the not-so-distant past, personal computer systems (at home or in the office) were a mess of cables, a literal spaghetti junction. Why? Because we have so many peripherals plugged into the PC. Peripherals can be external things like keyboards, monitors, speakers, printers, and microphones. They can also be inside the computer case, like a DVD drive.
These things are called peripherals because they're not all essential to the computer's ability to operate. The computer's main parts, the processor and the motherboard, could get along fine without most of them. But two peripherals, the keyboard and the display, are pretty much required. The other peripherals are convenience devices for you and let the computer share its results and take in additional information.
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You can break peripherals down into obvious distinctions - internal (such as storage devices) or external (pretty much everything else). You can also break them down by function: storage, output (monitors and printers) and input (scanners, keyboard, and mouse). There are four other ways to categorize peripherals: physical connection, virtual connection, shared, and dedicated.
- Physical Connection - A peripheral that is physically connected to your PC is easy to visualize, there's a cable of some sort. Most display devices like monitors or SmartTVs are connected to a PC via a HDMI (High Definition Media Interface) cable. HDMI cables are also used to connect audio devices as they transmit video and audio. The other common connection cable is a USB (Universal Serial Bus) cable which is used for short-distance digital communications. Most printers and scanners are USB devices. The USB ports on a PC can also be used for things like external storage devices or cameras.
- Virtual Connection - Wireless seems to be the way the world is going. Many devices today have built-in wireless connectivity. There are two main types - Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Wi-Fi is the wireless version of local area networking, used to build a home office, small business network or for public area connectivity. Many printers also use Wi-Fi connectivity. The other wireless connectivity option for peripherals is Bluetooth which is designed for device-to-device connectivity over short distances. Keyboards, mice, and digital cameras often use Bluetooth connectivity.
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- Shared - Some peripherals like printers can be shared on a network. A printer can be connected to a PC via a USB cable and be shared through the PC's operating system (such as Windows), or a printer can have built-in Wi-Fi and be part of a local area network. Storage devices can also be shared (network drives) through the operating system.
- Dedicated - Peripherals like keyboards and mice are not designed to be shared, so they are considered dedicated.
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It's the job of the operating system (Windows, Mac OS, Linux) to manage the hardware and software pieces of the system, including the peripherals. When you attach a new peripheral to a PC, it comes with a set of device drivers, which are essentially an instruction set for the PC on how to talk to the device. The operating system looks at the device drivers to learn how to work with the peripheral, and takes that knowledge and uses it to broker communications between the processor and the peripheral.
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Another way you could define a virtual peripheral is one that is simulated by software. For example, fax software simulates the functionality of a fax machine.
You can also say that a device you're connected to through the cloud (think through your Internet connection) is a virtual peripheral. An example of this is storing your pictures on Google Drive. You are using a virtual peripheral, a remote storage device.
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Peripherals are devices that enhance our computing experience, allowing the computer to share the results of its work and to take in additional data. Peripherals can be internal to the computer or external. They can have different functions such as storage, input or output.
Peripherals can be attached to the computer via a physical connection like a HDMI (High Definition Media Interface) cable or a USB (Universal Serial Bus) cable. There can be virtual connections through wireless technologies like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. You can also be virtually connected to a peripheral through the cloud (such as using Google Drive for storage).
Peripherals can be shared, like a network printer or dedicated, like a keyboard. The PC's operating system brokers communications between the peripherals and the computer's processor. Peripherals come with device drivers which help tell the operating system how to talk with the peripheral.
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