IT Chapter 5 Review

carpal tunnel syndrome

A debilitating condition caused by pressure on the median nerve in the wrist, producing damage and pain to nerves and tendons in the hands, is called ________

D. RFID tag

A device with a microchip that contains code numbers that can be read by a scanner's radio waves is a(n)? a. optical character reader b. nanotube c. pointing device d. RFID tag e. multifunction mouse

impact

A printer that forms characters or images by striking a mechanism such as a print hammer or wheel against an inked ribbon, leaving images on a paper, is called a(n) _________ printer

Dumb

A(n) _______ terminal is entirely dependent for all its processing activities on the computer system to which it is connected

Mouse

A(n) _________ is an input device that is rolled about on a desktop and directs a pointer on the computer's display screen.

Page description language

A(n) _________ is software that describes the shape and position of characters and graphics to the printer.

touch screen

A(n) __________ accepts input supplied with finger and hand gestures

sensor

An input device that collects specific data directly from the environment and transmits it to a computer is called a(n) ________

RSI = repetitive stress injuries; several wrist, hand, arm, and neck injuries resulting when muscle groups are forced through fast repetitive motions. They include muscle strain and tendonitis, as well as CTS = carpal tunnel syndrome, a debilitating condition caused by pressure on the median nerve in the wrist, producing pain and damage to nerves and tendons in the hands

Briefly describe RSI and CTS. Why are they problems?

Examples are bar-code scanning in stores of all sorts and by the post office; identifying lost pets, inputting graphics during desktop publishing, paying tolls at bridge tollgates; managing inventory; tracking herds of wild animals, sending photos to family and friends over the Internet.

Describe two situations in which scanning is useful

A printer is an output device that prints characters, symbols, and perhaps graphics on paper or another hardcopy medium. Printers can be separated into two categories, according to whether or not the image produced is formed by physical contact of the print mechanism with the paper. Impact printers do have contact with paper; nonimpact printers do not. An impact printer forms characters or images by striking a mechanism such as a print hammer or wheel against an inked ribbon, leaving an image on paper. A dot-matrix printer contains a print head of small pins that strike an inked ribbon against paper, to form characters or images. Print heads are available with 9, 18, or 24 pins; the 24-pin head offers the best quality. Dot-matrix printers can print draft quality, a coarser-looking 72 dpi, or near-letter-quality (NLQ), a crisper-looking 144 dpi. The machines print 40-300 characters per second and can handle graphics as well as text. A disadvantage is the noise they produce, because of the print head striking the paper. Nowadays impact printers are still used with mainframes but rarely with personal computers. Dot-matrix printers are the only desktop printers that can use multilayered forms to print "carbon copies." Nonimpact printers are faster and quieter than impact printers, because no print head strikes paper. These printers form characters and images without direct physical contact between the printing mechanism and paper. Two types of nonimpact printers often used with microcomputers are laser printers and ink-jet printers. A third kind, the thermal printer, is seen less frequently. Like a dot-matrix printer, a laser printer creates images with dots. However, as in a photocopying machine, these images are produced on a drum, treated with a magnetically charged ink-like toner (powder), and then transferred from drum to paper. (Laser printers are also called page printers, because they print one page at a time.) Laser printers run with software called a page description language (PDL). This software tells the printer how to lay out the printed page, and it supports various fonts. A laser printer comes with one of two types of PDL: PostScript (developed by Adobe) or PCL (Printer Control Language, developed by Hewlett-Packard). In desktop publishing, PostScript is the preferred PDL. Laser printers have their own CPU, ROM, and memory (RAM). When you need to print out graphics-heavy color documents, your printer will need more memory. Laser printers are among the most common types of nonimpact printer. They produce sharp, crisp images of both text and graphics. They are quiet and fast. They can print in different fonts—that is, sets of typestyles and type sizes. The more expensive models can print in different colors and have a high dpi. Ink-jet printers spray onto paper small, electrically charged droplets of ink from four nozzles through holes in a matrix at high speed. Like laser and dot-matrix printers, ink-jet printers form images with little dots. Ink-jet printers spray ink onto the page a line at a time, in both high-quality black-and-white text and high-quality color graphics. (To achieve impressive color images, you should use high-quality, high-gloss paper, which prevents ink-jet-sprayed dots from feathering, or spreading.) Ink-jet cartridges come in various combinations: a single color for black and all color inks, two separate black and color cartridges, or separate cartridges for black and each color. Some cartridges also include the print head, which is apt to wear out before the rest of the machine. Thermal printers are low- to medium-resolution printers that use a type of coated paper that darkens when heat is applied to it. The paper is moved past a line of heating elements that burn dots onto the paper. This technology is typically used in business for bar-code label applications and for printing cash register receipts. A plotter is a specialized output device designed to produce high-quality graphics in a variety of colors. Plotters are used to create hardcopy items such as maps, architectural drawings, and three-dimensional illustrations, which are usually too large for regular printers. The three principal kinds of plotters are pen, electrostatic, and large-format. A pen plotter uses one or more colored pens to draw on paper or transparencies; it produces continuous lines, not patterns of dots. In an electrostatic plotter, paper lies partially flat on a table-like surface, and toner is used in a photocopier-like manner. Large-format plotters operate somewhat like an ink-jet printer but on a much larger scale. This type of plotter is often used by graphic artists. Multifunction printers combine several capabilities, such as printing, scanning, copying, and faxing. Multifunction printers take up less space and cost less than the four separate office machines that they replace. Specialty printers also exist for such purposes as printing photos and labels, and printing text in Braille.

Discuss the different types of printers and their features.

Liquid Crystal Display

LCD is short for ___________

dots per inch; DPI

The measure of the number of dots that are printed in a linear inch is called _________

impact; nonimpact

The two main categories of printer are ______ and _______

False; plotter

True/False A digital pen is a specialized, output device designed to produce large, high-quality graphics in a variety of colors

False

True/False Bar codes are input with pointing devices

False

True/False Computer users have no need to be concerned about ergonomics

False

True/False It has been proved electromagnetic fields pose no danger to human beings

True

True/False On a computer screen, the more pixels that appear per square inch, the higher the resolution

False; optical mark recognition

True/False Optical character-recognition software reads "bubble" marks and converts them into computer-usable form

True

True/False Output hardware consists of devices that translate information processed by the computer into a form that humans can understand

True

True/False Photos taken with a digital camera can be downloaded to a computer's hard disk

True

True/False Plotters are used to print architectural drawings and in computer-aided design

True

True/False Pointing devices control the position of the cursor on the screen

False

True/False Resolution is the amount of space between the centers of adjacent pixels

True

True/False Scanners use optical equipment to translate images of text, drawings, photos, and the like into digital form

False

True/False The abbreviation dpi stands for "dense pixel intervals"

False

True/False The lower the refresh rate, the more solid the image looks on the screen

Among the factors affecting screen clarity are dot pitch, resolution, color depth, and refresh rate. These relate to the individual dots known as pixels, which represent the images on the screen. A pixel, for "picture element," is the smallest unit on the screen that can be turned on and off or made different shades. Dot pitch (dp) is the amount of space between the centers of adjacent pixels; the closer the dots, the crisper the image. Resolution is the image sharpness of a display screen; the more pixels there are per square inch, the finer the level of detail attained. Resolution is expressed in terms of the formula horizontal pixels × vertical pixels. Each pixel can be assigned a color or a particular shade of gray. Color depth, or bit depth, is the amount of information, expressed in bits, that is stored in a dot (pixel). The more bits, the more shades of gray and colors can be represented. Refresh rate is the number of times per second that the pixels are recharged so that their glow remains bright. The higher the refresh rate, the more solid the image looks on the screen—that is, the less it flickers.

What characteristics determine the clarity of a computer screen?

Almost all scanners come with OCR software. Optical character-recognition (OCR) software converts scanned text from images (pictures of the text) to an editable text format (usually ASCII) that can be imported into a word processing application and manipulated. Special OCR characters appear on utility bills and price tags on department-store merchandise.

What is OCR used for?

Dumb terminals are used, for example, in airline reservations systems, in large networks connected to a host computer that does the processing.

What is a common use of dumb terminals?

A font is a particular typeface design (type size and style)—for example, 10-point Times Roman, 12-point Helvetica.

What is a font?

Picture element; a pixel is the smallest unit on the screen that can be turned on and off or made different shades. Pixels are the building blocks that allow text and graphical images to be displayed on a screen.

What is pixel short for? What is a pixel?

Source data-entry devices are nonkeyboard data entry devices that create machine-readable data on magnetic media or paper or feed it directly into the computer's processor.

What is source data entry?

videoconferencing

When people in different geographic locations can have a meeting using computers and communications, it is called ______

E. QXGA

Which of the following display standards has the highest resolution? a. XGA b. UXGA c. VGA d. SVGA e. QXGA

B. speed

Which of the following factors does not affect the quality of a screen display? a. refresh rate b. speed c. resolution d. pixels e. color depth

C. Keyboard

Which of the following is not a pointing device? a. mouse b. touchpad c. keyboard d. joystick

E. mouse

Which of the following is not a source data-entry device? a. bar-code reader b. sensor c. digital camera d. scanner e. mouse

D. word document computer file

Which of the following is not considered hardcopy output? a. spreadsheet printout b. microfilm c. fax report d. word document computer file e. printed invoice

Laser

______ printers enabled the development of desktop publishing

Pixel

_________ is short for "picture element"

Output hardware

consists of devices that translate information processed by the computer into a form that humans can understand.

Biometrics

is the science of measuring individual body characteristics

Ergonomics

is the study of the physical relationships between people and their work environment